





B 


R 


he 


DING 


















































LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


WORKS OF 
PROF. G. H. GERBERDING, D.D., LL.D. 


The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church. 276 pages. 
Price, cloth, $1.00. 


New Testament Conversions. 283 pages. Price, cloth, $1.50. 


Life and Letters of W. A. Passavant, D.D. Over 600 pages. 
Price, cloth, $2.00. 


The Lutheran Pastor. 462 pages. Price, cloth, $2.00 net. 


The Lutheran Catechist. A Companion Book to “The Lu- 
theran Pastor.” Over 300 pages. Price, cloth, $2.00. 


The Lutheran Church in the Country. 212 pages, $1.00 net. 


A Character Sketch of Dr. R. F. Weidner. 140 pages. $1.00 
net. (Out of print.) 


Problems and Possibilities, or Serious Considerations for All 
Lutherans. 187 pages. Paper bound, 50 cents net. 


What's Wrong with the World. Paper, 75 cents. 
The Priesthood of Believers. 25 cents. 


Lutheran Fundamentals. A Simple System of Scripture 
Truth, with Applications for the Common Man by G. H. 
Gerberding, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Practical Theology, 
Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary, Minneapolis, 
Minn. Cloth, $1.50. 


<n OF PR INCE ? > 


acT 20 1925 
?- 
%p 


LUTHERAN a” 
FUNDAMENTALS 


A SIMPLE SYSTEM OF SCRIPTURE TRUTH 
WITH APPLICATIONS FOR THE 
COMMON MAN 






By 
G. H. GERBERDING, D.D., LL. D. 


Professor of Practical Theology 
Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary 
Minneapolis, Minnesota 


a 


ROCK ISLAND, ILL. 
AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN 
1925 


COPYRIGHT, 1925 
BY 


AUCUSTANA BOOK CONCERN 


Printed in the United States of America 


AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN, PRINTERS AND BINDERS 
ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS 


1925 


DEDICATION 


TO ALL LUTHERAN BROTHERHOODS 
AND TEACHERS OF RELIGION 
IN CHURCH SCHOOLS, THIS 
BOOK IS DEDICATED 
IN HOPE 
BY 
LHE AUTHOR 





A LAYMAN’S FOREWORD 


4B O WRITE a book on a scientific subject 
that will be read and understood and 
appreciated by the common man is a formida- 
ble undertaking. For a generation Dr. Ger- 
berding has been writing books on varied sub- 
jects, many of which have carried a message 
to the rank and file in our Church and all of 
which have been received with appreciation 
in wide circles. For thirty years the author 
has been a professor of Practical Theology. 
In all his teaching he has ever emphasized the 
importance of being practical and so simple 
that the common man could not fail to under- 
stand. To the average layman a treatise on 
Dogmatics would ordinarily make no appeal. 
He would avoid it as too technical, too diffi- 
cult to understand. 

We know of no other book which attempts 
what the author has here accomplished, name- 


7 


8 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


ly, to set down in popular form, devoid of 
technical arrangement and phraseology, the . 
great fundamental teachings of our Church. 
We believe the author has done a work which 
will be well received by many who love our 
Church and her great mission in the world to- 
day, and also by many sincere seekers after 
truth outside of our Church. 

While it is true that the Lutheran Church 
is noted above all other churches for its won- 
derful system of dogmatics, we believe it is al- 
so true that relatively few laymen in our 
Church have a clear conception of her great 
doctrines. The object of this book is to famil- 
larize our laity with the teachings of the 
Church. The author develops doctrine after 
doctrine in a most delightful and happy way. 
It is the experienced teacher explaining the 
great fundamental beliefs of the Church. It 
is the well-seasoned Bible student marshalling 
passage after passage from the Word to prove 
that our doctrines are not man-made. It is the 
heart-warm Christian setting forth the things 
which alone can satisfy the longings and cray- 
ings of the human soul. It is the practical 
teacher talking in a way that can be under- 
stood by the common man, and doing it in a 
very human way. 


A LAYMAN’S FOREWORD 9 


The book is fascinating. Some passages are 
of extreme beauty. For example, the chapter 
on the Trinity, where the author shows in his 
very best style how the different persons of the 
Trinity fit into the life of the believer at vari- 
ous times. Or on Baptism, where he draws 
a pen-picture of the Baptist mother and of the 
Lutheran mother. 

Pastors will find this little volume invalua- 
ble for distribution among those whom they 
are bringing into church membership. It will 
serve a most useful purpose in the hands of 
our Church Council-men, our Sunday-school 
teachers and other lay workers. It should be 
studied as a text-book in church-schools until 
each doctrine is clearly fixed in the mind. It 
is dedicated to all Lutheran Brotherhoods, 
and every Brotherhood should use it as a study 
book. 

In these days when there is so much laxity 
and carelessness in spiritual things we often 
hear it said that one church is as good as an- 
other. The peculiar glory of the Lutheran 
Church is that she holds fast to the Word of 
God; that she emphasizes the things which 
that Word emphasizes; that she neither adds 
to nor detracts from that Word. When the 
day shall come that the common man in our 


10 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Church understands and therefore appreciates 
the great fundamental teachings of God’s 
Word, the Lutheran Church will be a vital 
force not only in the lives of those who consti- 
tute her membership, but also in the life of 
our nation. 

This little book, if properly used, will has- 
ten that day. J. K. JENSEN. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PUPAE CO PTO Ne eer eee ee A ae tose NG os yates 


Division: In Paradise, 21. At its gate, 21. 
At Babel, 21. Israel’s Kingdom divided, 22. 
Divisions in Apostolic Church, 22. Schism be- 
tween Eastern and Western Church, 22. Ref- 
ormation divided Western Church, 22. Prot- 
estantism divided, 23. “Iwo Protestant Systems 
of Theology, 23. New Schism in Reformed 
Churches, 24. Fundamentalists and Liberals, 
24. Lutheran Church Sound and Harmonious 
on Fundamentals, 25. This Book a System of 
Fundamentals for the Common Man, 26. 


AMIS Dewy Sil eee eee hte Ss a a a Ee ee RAL 


We Believe in God 
All heathens do, 33. Why? 35. Proofs for 


the existence of God, 35. Proofs from without 
us, 36. Proof from effect and cause, 36. Proof 
from design, 37. Proof from within us, 38. 
Proof from conscience, 39. From experience, 


39- 
II 


oo 


12 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


CHAPTER LDS BG a tc cee ak eee ee 
The Being and Nature of God 


Who and what is God? 41. God is Absolute 
Personality, 42. God is Spirit, 42. God is 
One, 44. Is three in One, 45. So meets our 
needs and experiences, 46. The attributes of 


God, 50. 


CHAPTER LT psig creas iyi saat ian eae Cay 16 
The Works of God.—Revelation 


Our Bible, 55. Unaided man couldn’t make 
it, 59. Why men hate it, 60. Its inspiration, 
63. It meets the soul’s deepest needs, 64. Story 
of Littleton and West, 66. 


CHAP TERAT VS U25 0) soe rnc Cy eal ee ae 
Creation 

Bible gives no date, 69. Order of Creation, 

69. From lowest up, 70. In harmony with 

science, 70. Creation of man, 71. Body—of 

earth—so says chemistry, 75. Soul—not of earth 

—but God-breathed, 76. Man-made Accounts, 

79. Evolution, 80. Unscientific—Unreasonable, 

SI. 
Creation of Angels 

What are they? 83. Their work, 85. Bad 

angels—Satan, 87. His Kingdom—His work, 
89. Belief in helps me, 91. 


55 


68 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 13 


PUPPAU TRE VG te Hye Nera rae eats CO cs 92 
God’s Work of Providence 


God watches over Creation, 93. Over Na- 
tions—Over Man, 95. Special Providence, 96. 
Miracles, 98. Predestination, 99. Relation to 
Foreknowledge, 99. Ten points in Election of 
Grace, 102. Relation of Affliction to Provi- 
dence, 103. 


PART II 
GTAP LR aN Less it avn Nie the ee iteics hehe con a ENE 109 


Heathens know that they are sinful, 109. 
Unrest to-day because of sin, 110. Sin, 112. 
Whence is sin? 113. The Fall, 113. Old story 
explains world’s woes, 114. Doctrine of orig- 
inal sin is hated, 118. Still true and funda- 
mental, 119. 


BART UIT 


REDEMPTION 
PEM P ERR EY Lit ORS, Cit ye ue ene es at a eis tak 123 


The Redeemer 


In Eden God began to prepare for man’s re- 
demption, 124. Man could not redeem self, 
125. Judaism, 125. Law showed guilt, 125. 
Showed need of a Redeemer, 125. God sent 
Redeemer, 126. Virgin-born, 126. God-Man, 
126. His story, 127. His claims for Himself, 


14 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


PAGE 
131. Claims, true or false, 133. If false, what 


then? 134. His Names, 134. Attributes, 135. 
Works, 136. Worship, 136. Also true Man, 
137. Comfort of this, 137. This God-man is 
the Redeemer I need, 138. 


CHAPTER AV 1 Teee on eee eee Gee een 140 
The Work of the Redeemer, or Redemption 


How did He redeem me? 140. His state of 
humiliation, 141. My Prophet, 141. My 
Priest, 143. Vicarious Atonement, 144. Com- 
fort in, 147. My King, 147. 


PART IV 


THE APPLICATION AND APPROPRIATION 
OF REDEMPTION 
CHAPTER SLA. ORS ee eee eee ce eae I51 


The Holy Spirit, His Person and Work 


Atonement redeems, but does not renew man, 
152. Man not fit for Kingdom, 152. Can't 
make himself fit, 152. For this the Holy Ghost 
is needed, 153. His Person, 153. Is God, 153. 
Proofs, 154. Was present and effective in Old 
Testament, 154. Came in fulness at Pentecost, 
157. Came to abide, 158. Works through 
Means, i. e., Word and Sacraments, 159. 


The Church 


Made possible by Christ, 161. He promised 
to build, 162. Promise fulfilled when Holy 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 15 


PAGE 
Spirit came, 162. Relation of Church to Christ, 


162. What the Church is, 164. Not perfect 
here, 164. Hypocrites in the Church, 164. Yet 
God’s children are there, 165. Holy Spirit 
gathers them through Word and Baptism, 167. 
Children also, 168. 


RETA LER Ca ie cts has ae Wits sat whe Gi daa Bakes Pa wi 170 
The Holy Spirit's Work in Baptism 


Infant Baptism, 170. Children need Grace, 
170. God can give it, 171. Two roots of error, 
172. A difference between Lutheran and Re- 
formed principles of Interpretation, 174. Jesus 
used means, 175. Can use Baptism, 175. Does, 
175. Proofs, 176. What of children who die 
unbaptized? 179. Comfort in Infant Baptism, 
182. 


HAMPERS Frou, tian) Meerut ne eee ns 183 


Regeneration and Justification 


Confusing systems, 183. Need of systematic 
clearness, 184. Regeneration is the beginning 
of a spiritual life, 186. We speak first of in- 
fants, 187. [he two elements of the new life, 


188. Work different in adults, 189. 


Justification 


How Luther found it, 190. What is it? 192. 
Its cause, 193. Its ground, 193. Faith grips 
Christ, 194. Is experience, 194. Proof pas- 
sages, 196. Fruits: Adoption, 196. Union with 
Christ, 196. 


16 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


CHAPTERS ALTO a eae seer cohe ie tae ee ee 199 


Conversion 


Importance of, 199. Meaning of, 199. Ele- 
ments in, 200. The process, 201. Who needs 
it? 203. Not every one, 203. Not self-wrought, 
205. he prodigal son, 206. Misleading teach- 
ings, 207. Grace must bring it about, 2009. 
Through means, 210. Man can go to the 
Word, 211. Can use it, 211. Can give atten- 
tion, 211. Can resist, 212. Experiences vary, 
213. ‘“Lemperaments differ, 213. Great ques- 
tion is: Am [ now in a converted state? 218. 


Crap: XPD 7 enn ok. i era 219 


Sanctification or Growth in Holiness 


Believer not perfect, 219. Paul, 220. Be- 
liever conscious of and sorry for his sins, 221. 
Two kinds of sin, 221. Sins of malice, 221. 
Sins of weakness, 221. Law needed, 222. 
What it is to a believer, 222. Thus he grows, 
223. Ill at ease in worldly atmosphere, 225. 
Means of Grace strengthen, 225. Sacraments, 
226. Lord’s Supper, 226. Meaning, 227. 
Doctrine, 228. Fitness for, 232. Confession, 
234. Pastoral visit, 235. Public service, 236. 


CHAPTER (XLV eos eat ie eee ee 237 
Prayer and Sanctification 
Word and prayer belong together, 237. Dis- 


tinction between, 237. Relation, 238. Prayer 
not a Means of Grace, 238. Definition of 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 17 


PAGE 
prayer, 237. Who can pray? 239. Forms and 


attitudes, 241. Mistakes about prayer, 241. 
Interpret Word rightly, 242. God does not 
answer all prayers, 242. Distinguish between 
temporal and spiritual, 244. Dangers here, 246. 
Prayer for healing, 246. ‘Three safe directions, 
247. Sin in Lodge Prayers, 249. Prayer in 
Jesus’ name, 249. Right heart and life needed, 
252. [hen I have a prayer-life, 253. Right 
prayers always answered, 255. Always in God’s 
way and time, 255. Matthesius’ Rules, 257. 


SERAP TERS NV 5 Eis: beg ces ts Mabey Oem ee 260 
Public Worship in God’s House and God's 
Works as Aids in Sanctification 
Influence of week-day occupation, 260. God 
left two institutions from Eden, 261. ‘The 
Lord’s Day, 262. Public worship, 262. In 
early Church, 263. Now, 264. Blessing in 
worship, 265. Good Works, 266. Christian 

wants to do, 266. Finds joy in, 267. 


PART V 
THE LAST THINGS 


PAPTRR ON. Domenie eh, Sree Pk See a ee 271 
The Last Things —Death 


Christian life not for this world only, 271. 
Death, 272. Experience of, 272. Dreaded, 
273. Soul immortal, 274. Proofs, 274. Sepa- 
ration of souls at death, 276. What of heathen? 
278. 


Luth. Fundamentals. 2. 


18 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


CHAPTER XVII 


The Last Times 


Views differ, 280. Shallow optimists, 281. 
Leave Word out, 281. Contradict history, 281. 
What saith the Scripture? 282. Present dis- 
pensation to take out a people, 283. Last times 
to be bad, 283. Antichrist, 284. A system, 286. 
To head up in a person, 287. 


CHAPTER o VALLI acre eeeey aot a en een ornate 
The Second Coming of Christ 


He will come again, 288. Proofs, 289. Two 
events accompany, 290. First resurrection, 291. 
Translation of saints, 292. The Millennium, 
292. “Two views of, 292. Postmillenarians, 
292. Premillenarians, 293. Augsburg Con- 
fession on chiliasts, 293. Proofs, 294. Four 
reflections, 294. Assenting Theologians, 296. 


CHAPTER XIX 


The Resurrection 


Death still reigns, 297. Christ conquered, 
299. Rose, 299. Ergo: All the dead will rise, 
299. In order, 300. Dead in Christ first, 300. 
Then all others, 301. With what body? 301. 


CHAPTER XX 


e '2 © © (6 | O° \e- sre5e © (0006 C2816 6 fe 6 electra, 6 475) oe 6 


The Final Judgment 


Many refuse to believe in, 303. How then 
vindicate God’s Government? 304. Judgment 


288 


297 


303 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 19 


. PAGE 
needed, 304. Righteous dead already judged, 


306. Son of Man the Judge, 307. His norm, 
307. Why? 308. 


SEPA PT RRMA Lied ithe gees otek Tae ae Mien. 309 
The End of the World 


The world has been groaning, 309. Second 
Adam to restore what first Adam ruined, 310. 
Earth to abide, 310. ‘To be purged, 311. To 
be the outer court of heaven, 311. 


REEL APTRRS OGL LT ame WS iee ee rca Sete None oe aleve 312 
Eternal Death or Hell 


An unwelcome subject, 312. “Three prime 
considerations, 312. 1. God wants no one to 
go there, 312. 2. Did not prepare hell for man, 
312. 3. Has done all He could to keep man out 
of hell, 313. Hell’s anguish, 314. Conscious- 
ness of lost that they brought themselves there, 
314. Memory will live, 315. Forever sepa- 
rated from God and the good, 315. This will 
be forever, 315. Proofs, 315. Nature of fire, 
310. 


CTE Ea Feet SES COMI AE Reise pole aii 317 
Everlasting Life or Heaven 


Lost Paradise restored, 317. Paul and John 
and Christ describe, 318. Who will be there, 
319. ‘Their occupation, 320. 





INTRODUCTION 


IVISION! Division is again called for. 
From the beginning division has been 
called for. Over and over again, division has 
come. ‘To the end, division will come. 
Inside the Garden of Eden God said to the 
serpent: “I will put enmity between thee and 
the woman, and between thy seed and her 
seed.” Division was predicted in Paradise. 
At its very gates humanity divided. Abel and 
Cain were both religious. Both brought of- 
ferings to the Lord. God had respect unto 
Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and 
his offering He had no respect. ‘There was 
division. From that day forth, some followed 
the faith of Abel, others walked in the way of 
Cain. Humanity was divided. The division 
has continued and will continue to the end. 
The Cainites brought on the Flood. The 
new humanity was of one speech and of one 
language. The new humanity grew strong and 
self-sufficient. Men agreed to build a monu- 
ment to show that humanity could be, and 
21 


22 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


would be, independent of God. God scattered 
the new race. There was division. 

Through Moses God made a new nation. 
That nation became a Kingdom. That King- 
dom was rent in twain. There was division. 
There came disaster. 

The Fulness of Time came. Peace on earth 
and good will to men were heralded from 
heaven. The Church, against which the gates 
of hell should not prevail, was promised by 
Jesus. More than once strife and division 
came unto the band of Christ’s disciples. — 
Heresy, schim and sect raised their ugly heads 
in the Apostolic Church. Division was there. 

The Church after the apostles was the 
Church still in its earliest love. Heresies and 
divisions came again. Later a great schism 
split the Church into Eastern and Western. In 
the latter a mighty, monarchial, despotic hier- 
archy was built up. Worldly power brought 
in worldly corruption in faith and in life. 

The blessed, heaven-born Reformation 
came. It brought back an open Bible and 
showed poor, burdened, and sin-sick humani- 
ty how to find forgiveness of sin, life and sal- 
vation in and through its blessed pages. Those 
who accepted what the Reformation offered 
were separated from the church that followed 


INTRODUCTION 23 


the pope and human tradition. There was di- 
vision. But for the separated ones it was a 
second fulness of the time, a time of spiritual 
refreshing. Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 
He was again walking among the golden can- 
dlesticks. Heaven was open, and the angels 
were singing again the old Glorias. 

But, alas and alack! Division came again. 
The so-called Protestant Church, which had 
uncovered, and was building again on the 
foundation of prophets and apostles, with Je- 
sus Christ as the true corner stone, was rent 
asunder. There came to be a Lutheran 
Church and a Reformed Church, which af- 
terwards separated into many divisions with 
various names. ‘There came to be two great 
Protestant theologies, the one Lutheran, the 
other Reformed. The latter has many varia- 
tions. As over against the Lutheran theology 
it is called Reformed theology. In many 
points these two theologies are contrary, the 
one to the other. 

From the Reformed Churches many heret- 
ical and dangerous sects have gone out. If 
all thinking people could be made to see that 
there are real, serious, and deep-going differ- 
ences between Lutheran and Reformed theo- 
logy, much confusion of thought would be 


24 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


avoided. May this Book help all who read 
it to distinguish between Lutheran and Re- 
formed teaching. There are deep-going dif- 
ferences. A general consciousness of this will 
greatly strengthen our dear Church. “He 
teaches well who distinguishes well.” 

All the Reformed Churches that accept, be- 
lieve, teach, and confess the so-called ecumen- 
ical or world-wide creeds of the early Church, 
1. e., the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Atha- 
nasian Creeds, are generally recognized as 
Evangelical Churches. 

Leaving out the fanatical and soul-destroy- 
ing sects, there has grown up within the Re- 
formed Evangelical Churches a great and 
threatening modern schism. It grows out of 
two opposite views and attitudes as to the Bi- 
ble. The two parties are known as the Funda- 
mentalists and the Non-fundamentalists or 
Liberals, or Modernists. The latter refuse to 
accept and confess, among others, such doc- 
trines as: The Inspiration of the Bible; The 
Trinity; The Virgin Birth and Deity of 
Christ; The Vicarious Atonement; Original 
Sin; The Need of Regeneration and Renewal 
by the Holy Ghost. 

The former believe that all these doctrines 
are fundamental to true Christianity and are 


INTRODUCTION 25 


part of that faith once for all delivered to the 
saints. ‘There isaschism. Again division is 
called for. Division is here. 

Here is asurprise,a wonder! The original 
Protestant Church, the greatest Protestant 
Church, the Church that more than one prom- 
inent Reformed writer has called ‘The 
Church of Theologians,” the Lutheran 
Church, has no schism on Fundamentals! She 
believes, teaches, and confesses all the above | 
named fundamental doctrines. She believes: 
more. Her theology is deeper and clearer on 
the Person and Work of Christ than that of 
any other Church. She not only believes and 
teaches the sovereignty of grace, but she has, 
as no other Church has, a precious, helpful 
and comforting explanation of how divine 
grace is brought to needy man. 

In her teaching that grace comes through 
the Means of Grace, she bridges and harmo- 
nizes the sovereignty of God and the responsi- 
bility of man. To her this is fundamental and 
inexpressibly precious. It occupies a promi- 
nent place in her Dogmatics. 

She sympathizes with all earnest Funda- 
mentalists. She is ready to help them. They 
need to know this great, solid, satisfying 


26 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Church. We cordially invite them to get 
acquainted with us. 

This brings us to the purpose of this book. 
The setting forth of the fundamental beliefs 
of a Church in a natural and intelligible 
order is the task of Dogmatics. In Dogmatics 
the Church sets forth her beliefs and teach- 
ings, gives her reasons for holding them, and 
commends them to all earnest inquirers after 
truth. In her Dogmatics, the Church’s Fun- 
damentals are to be found. 

The Lutheran Church has probably pro- 
duced more standard works on Dogmatics 
than any other Church in the world. She has 
produced, is producing, and will continue to 
produce a brilliant array of scholarly, sound, 
Scriptural, and deeply spiritual men, who 
have given and will continue to give their life 
to the searching out and setting forth of the 
things that God would have His children 
know and believe. The best books on Dog- 
matics have been and are those that show the 
sinner most clearly what he must do to be 
saved. 

The writer of this book is not and never has 
been a professor of Dogmatic Theology. For 
about thirty years he has occupied the chair of 
Practical Theology. He admires the dogmatic 


INTRODUCTION 27 


treatises of our great Church teachers, loves 
to study them, and hopes that our American 
Lutheran Church will produce many more. 
A year ago he spent a goodly part of his sum- 
mer vacation in a careful study of that great, 
scholarly, comprehensive, and challenging 
latest American work entitled “Christian 
Dogmatics” written by his revered, admired, 
and beloved classmate in Philadelphia Semi- 
nary fifty years ago, the Rev. Doctor C. E. 
Lindberg of Rock Island, Illinois. 

Yes, we need and want these great, learned, 
and exhaustive works on Dogmatics. They 
are necessary for the Church’s ministers, 
teachers, and leaders. They cannot do with- 
out them. 

But the every day man cannot comprehend 
and will not read them. They are above him. 
He cannot reach up. They are too deep for 
him. He cannot penetrate them. He is nu- 
merous. He fills our Church pews—in as far 
as they are filled. As Lincoln said: ‘God 
must have loved the common people; He 
made so many of them.” ‘These common peo- 
ple need to know and understand the funda- 
mental teachings of the great Church of the 
Reformation. ‘That Church has a system of 
truth that invites investigation. It bears ac- 


28 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


quaintance. ‘The better it is known, the more 
it commends itself. Not one of the doctrines 
of this Church needs to be apologized for. 
Not one needs to be compromised or explained 
away. Our’beliefs and teachings need noth- 
ing more than to be studied with an open 
mind. 

To such a study this book invites. It wants 
to help thoughtful people. It desires the com- 
mon man to read, to think, to understand. 

This book claims to be thoroughly loyal to 
all the teachings and confessions of the Lu- 
theran Church. The writer has given his life 
to the exposition, the defense, and the propa- 
gation of these teachings. They have satisfied 
the questionings and the yearnings of millions 
of devout seekers after truth. They give rest 
and peace and comfort to the writer’s own 
soul. He loves them as he loves his life. 

It may be that the arrangement, the order, 
the system in this book does not correspond to 
those in the scientific treatises on Dogmatics. 
Systems, plans, and arrangements are human. 
They are neither inerrant nor infallible. The 
old orders and systems may bear re-examina- 
tion and revision. 

This book may differ from the large, schol- 
arly, and exhaustive works also in language. 


INTRODUCTION 29 


The phraseology and the statements may be 
different in form and expression. Perhaps 
this is so much the worse for the older and 
bigger books. ‘There can be revision of form 
and restatement without changing of essence 
and principle. 

We offer this book on Lutheran Fundamen- 
tals, or Dogmatics, to the Common Man. 
Come now and let us reason together. 

We cherish the fond hope that this book 
will also be helpful to the preacher. He 
preaches to, and endeavors to reach and influ- 
ence for God and for good, the Common Man. 
He does not always succeed in getting his 
message across. May this book assist him in 
making the precious things of God so clear 
that the wayfaring man, though a fool, may 
understand, take to heart, and put into prac- 
tice all these Lutheran Fundamentals. 


ia 


ris 


| 
—s 
oon ie 


"t: 











CHAPTER 1 
We Believe in God 


H EATHEN who never saw a Bible, who 
never heard a missionary, believe these 
four truths: 

1. They believe that there is some kind 
of a supernatural power, some kind of a god 
above them, whose rule and reign are su- 
preme. 


2. They believe that this supreme power, 
be it a personified god, or gods, is displeased 
with them, is angry, and is ready to punish 
them. 

3. They believe that something must be 
done to appease this power in order to bring 
about reconciliation, harmony, peace. 


4. They believe that, if reconciliation is 
not brought about, there will be retribution 
beyond the grave. 


33 


Luth, Fundamentals. 3. 


34 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


These feelings after God, if haply they 
might find Him, are remnants in their inner 
consciousness of God’s revelation. He is not 
far from any one of them, but they know it. 
not. 

In this chapter we look at the first of the 
four beliefs. 

Only the fool says in his heart: ‘There 
is no God.” Belief in the existence and real- 
ity of a supreme and powerful being or beings 
is common to humanity. It is as widespread 
as the race. It is found even among the lowest 
and most degraded of the heathen. No race or 
tribe has ever been discovered among whose 
people there has not been found a dim, vague, 
but deep notion of some kind of a power 
above them, beyond them, on which they are 
dependent, and for whose favor they long. 
Even unbelieving, scientific investigators ac- 
knowledge the universality of this belief. It 
is an attribute of a human being. It is one 
of the decisive marks that separate a human 
from a brute. No brute ever evoluted into 
a rational, religious, believing, and worship- 
ing creature. 

If there is such a thing as an atheist, he 
has made himself such by wilfully crush- 
ing out his own highest and noblest human 


WE BELIEVE IN GOD 35 


man intuition. He is wilfully ignorant and 
hostile. He has made himself a fool, and the 
fool still says in his heart, “There is no God.” 
But we believe in God. 

Why do we believe in God? Can we justi- 
fy our belief? Can we give an answer to every 
man that asks for a reason, a ground of our 
own belief? Some of the most enlightened 
among the heathen have set forth and elab- 
orated a number of weighty proofs for the ex- 
istence of a god or gods. We need name only 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Ra- 
tionalistic, liberalistic, and naturalistic theo- 
logians always set great store by these heathen- 
born, traditional proofs for the existence of 
God. Evangelical and orthodox Dogmati- 
cians set them forth, evaluate them, and show 
how far the believer may use the proofs for 
God’s existence. 

Does the thinking layman, the every day 
man, need them? He will at least want to 
know what they are. Without extended elab- 
oration, we give the more important of these 
proofs. 

We might divide them into those proofs 
that come to us from without and those proofs 
that we have within us. Of the former the 
first is the so-called Cosmological Proof. This 
proof reasons from effect back to cause. 


36 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


We see, we scan, we study the stupendous, 
boundless material Universe. Whence is it? 
Could it be uncaused, or self-caused? ‘To sat- 
isfy our thinking , must we not believe in a 
causer Can we think of a building without a 
builder, an automobile without a maker, a 
book without an author? Would not such 
ideas put an end to clear thinking? 

Augustine in his searching and wonderful 
Confessions says in substance: “I asked the 
earth and all that is in it, and it answered: ‘I 
am not He.’ I asked the sea and all that 
swims, and creeps and lives, and they an- 
swered: ‘We are not God.’ I asked the winds 
and the air and all that moves in them, and 
they said: ‘Look higher, we are not God.’ I 
asked the heavens, the sun, the moon and the 
stars, and they replied: ‘We are not the God 
whom thou seekest!’ And I asked all of these 
together: ‘Since none of you, nor all of you 
are God, tell me of Him, and with a loud 
voice they answered: ‘He Made Us!” 

This is the Cosmological Argument, con- 
cretely, convincingly, and eloquently put. 
This is enough for any sincere and devout 
layman. 

We cast a hasty glance at the Teleological 
Argument. This argument goes a step fur- 


WE BELIEVE IN GOD 37 


ther than the former. It observes not merely 
the fact that there is a wonderful Universe, 
but it studies and sees evidence of intelligence, 
wisdom, planning, adaptation, and design 
everywhere. Where there is design, there 
must have been a Designer. Where we see a 
wonderfully planned and adapted Universe, 
there must have been a master Architect. We 
look into the heavens above us. We study sun, 
moon, planets, and stars. We learn that none 
~ are still. All are moving. The stellar Universe 
is the great clock-work of God, a stupendous 
exhibition of perpetual motion, without ever 
a collision; always keeping time for thousands 
and thousands of years. We learn that our 
earth is a planet, that it gets light from sun, 
moon, and stars; its heat, its day and night, its 
summer and winter from the sun; its rain and 
snow from the clouds. The air that we breathe 
is made up of the very gases, in the exact pro- 
portion, that the body needs. The earth’s sur- 
face, directly or indirectly, produces all the 
food and drink we need, and from its bowels 
we dig up our fuel, our metals, and our pre- 
cious stones. What a wonderful mother is 
Mother Earth! Who planned, arranged and 
adapted it sor We study our own bodies. 


38 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Again what wonderful design and adaptation 
—fearfully and wonderfully made! 

We cannot understand all things in or 
all things about nature. Sometimes she sur- 
prises, she staggers, she stuns and shocks us. 
Why did God make it so? Even so chil- 
dren are often grieved and shocked at what 
a good and wise father does. They don't 
know as much as father and can’t see as far as 
he can. Yet father has a good purpose and a 
wise design. So we shortsighted children can- 
not understand all. Sometime we’ll under- 
stand. Meanwhile we study, we admire, we 
appreciate more and more the Intelligence 
and Wisdom that made and arranged it all. 
The Teleological Argument is old. The 
writer of the Book of Job in the closing chap- 
ters sets it forth in a most striking and search- 
ing way. Psalm 104 sings out its glory. 
Everywhere “the heavens declare the glory 
of God and the firmament showeth His handi- 
work.” We too exclaim, “In wisdom hast 
Thou made them all.” 

The above are arguments based on exter- 
nals. Even the glimpse of self was rather of 
external or physical self. But man is above 
all else a spirit. The greatest thing in man 
is mind. The greatest thing in mind is spirit 


WE BELIEVE IN GOD 39 


or soul. The spirit or soul has a non-moral 
and a moral side. The moral side knows that 
there is a right over against a wrong. It 
knows that it ought to follow the right and 
that in proportion as it attains the right it finds 
the good. 

Within that mental side of man’s nature 
there is a moral monitor or judge. We call 
it conscience. Conscience is that power in 
man’s moral nature that discerns an inner law, 
a law written in the heart or soul, that hales 
its possessor before the law and judges him 
by it. Conscience, if it has not been wilfully 
blinded and hardened, is conscious of the God 
who has written that law in the heart. There- 
fore, as we have seen above, all races and 
tribes believe in some kind of god or gods. 
This is the Moral Argument, or the Argu- 
ment from conscience, for the existence of 
God. 

The moral nature longs for God. As Augus- 
tine so beautifully, so appealingly says: “Thou 
hast made us for Thyself, O God; therefore, 
we are without rest till we rest in Thee.” 

The soul that truly finds God finds rest and 
peace. It knows God by experience. It can 
no longer question or doubt. Day by day that 
soul experiences the realness, the presence, the 


40 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


comfort of companionship with God. Spur- 
geon was once asked, ‘“‘How do you know that 
there is a Godr’” Laconically he answered: 
“Why, I’ve been personally acquainted with 
Him for forty years.” 

This is the Argument from Christian Ex- 
perience. It crowns all other evidences. It 
is final. It is enough. 


CHAPTER II 
The Being and Nature of God 


N this chapter we take for granted and 

anticipate the fact that God has revealed 
Himself to man in His Word. In a later 
chapter we shall come back and discuss the 
reality and nature of that Revelation. 


Who and What Is God? 


The God in whom we believe is not an idea. 
He is not an abstraction of human thought. 
He is not a creation of man’s imagination. He 
is not a pervasive influence in nature. He is 
not an impersonal force. 

Pantheism may speculate and dream and 
imagine a God who is immanent in nature and 
confined in the physical universe. Panthe- 
ists may spin their fancies about the soul of 
the world, the spirit that pervades what the 
senses perceive. In poetic dreams they may 
imagine a god who sleeps in every stone and 
clod, who moves in the winds, who opens his 
~ eyes in the flowers, who hums in the bees, 


4I 


42 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


chirps in the crickets, croaks in the frogs, and 
makes melody in the mocking-birds. Let them 
outrage their own nature if they will. Let 
them believe in such a god if they can. We 
pity them. Such beliefs are too irrational 
and too absurd for us. We cannot command 
such a stretch of credulity. Our belief is 
easier. 

We believe in God the Father Almighty. 
Our God is a living and personal being. He 
is over all, God forever. He controls and 
guides all nature. No grass blade springs, no 
song-sparrow sings, without His will. 

God is absolute Personality. 

Personality implies and includes self-con- 
sciousness and self-determination. God is con- 
scious of Himself. He can say and does say: 
I am, I will, I say, I do. Nothing outside of 
Himself determines or can determine Him. 
He wills and does. With Him to will is to do. 
He is absolutely supreme and as free as He 
is supreme. 


God Is a Spirit. 


A spirit does not have flesh and bones. God 
does not have a material body. When His | 
Word speaks of His face, His arm, His hand, 
or other bodily parts, the language is figura- 


THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD _ 43 


tive and is used to aid our weak understand- 
ing, which cannot comprehend pure spirit. 
Much less can it comprehend God as pure 
spirit. As a purely spiritual Being, we can- 
not by searching find out the Almighty to per- 
fection. 

If God in His nature and being were al- 
together such a one as man is; if our finite 
minds could altogether understand, compre- 
hend, and conceive Him, He could in no sense 
be a real God, the God we need, the living 
God for whom the soul cries out. 

God is absolute. His existence, His being, 
His personality is entirely independent of 
any other existence or being. He is abso- 
lutely self-sufficient and self-dependent. He 
knows no bounds or limitations. He is 
conditioned by nothing outside of Himself. 
He is infinite and cannot be conditioned by 
anything or anyone that is finite. As absolute, 
self-sufficient, self-dependent, He can condi- 
tion Himself. He can will to limit and con- 
trol Himself. | 

While therefore our finite mind and reason 
cannot fully understand or comprehend the 
absolute, the infinite personality of God, we 
can and do know that His personality is as dif- 
ferent from a human personality as the in- 


44 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


finite is different from the finite, as the heav- 
ens are higher than the earth. This is the per- 
sonal God that we believe in. This is the God 
who can say “I” to me. This is the God to 
whom I can say “Thou” and “Thee.” I can 
say: “Abba; my Father, my God.” 

This God has revealed Himself as Triune 
or three-one. He is one in essence. He sub- 
sists in three Persons. He is three in one, and 
one in three. This is the doctrine of The 
Trinity. To man’s unaided reason this doc- 
trine is a mystery. We cannot understand it. 
Shall we on that account deny and reject it? 
Is not life itself a mystery? Is not life’s whole 
pathway strewn with mysteries? Do we not 
largely live on and in mysteries? ‘The wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
cometh, and whither it goeth.” ‘This we read 
every Trinity Sunday. 

We noted above that in His nature and be- 
ing God is a mystery. This God has made 
Himself known to us in His Word. On the 
one hand He claims to be One: 

Deut. 6.4. “Hear O Israel; The Lord our 
God is one Lord.” 

Deut. 4.35. ‘The Lord He is God; there 


is none else beside him.”’ 


THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD 45 


Isaiah 44. 6. “I am the first, and I am the 
last; and beside me there is no God.” 


Jesus says: “This is life eternal, that they 
should know thee, the only true God.” John 
Wiese 


Paul says: “We know that... there is 
none other God but one.”’ 1 Cor. 8. 4. 

Therefore the Church confesses in the Ni- 
cene Creed: 


“T believe in one God,” and in the Athana- 
sian Creed: “This is the Catholic [ Christian ] 
Faith: that we worship one God.” And so 
we Lutherans believe, teach, and confess. . 

This God who is one in essence is revealed 
in Scripture as three persons. ‘To each one of 
the three all the attributes possessed by the 
other two are ascribed. Each one is called 
God, each one has the attributes of God, each 
one does works that only God can do, and each 
one is worshiped as God. (To this we shall 
return when we consider the Son and the Holy 
Ghost separately.) Yet there are not three 
Gods, but one. At the baptism of Christ all 
three were present. The Son was baptized. 
The Holy Ghost descended in the form of a 
dove. The Father spoke from heaven. In 
John 14. 16, Jesus, the Son, said: “I will 


46 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


pray the Father, and he shall give you another 
Comforter, that He may be with you forever, 
even the Spirit of truth.” In His last com- 
mission Jesus directs His apostles to make dis- 
ciples of all the nations, baptizing them into 
the Name of the Father and of the Son and 
of the Holy Ghost.— Three persons, one 
Name, one God. In the Apostolic Benedic- 
tion, 2 Cor. 13. 14, we have: “The grace of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
and the communion of the Holy Ghost” men- 
tioned together—three in one. 

The Holy Church throughout the world 
has had good Scripture ground for believing, 
teaching, and confessing the doctrine of the 
Trinity. It has ever been one of her Funda- 
mentals. 

And is not this three-one God the very 
kind of a God that we need in our hazardous 
journey through life? Our hearts need just 
such a God as this. Our experience demands 
Him. Our life is made bearable and bright 
by Him. 

Let us look at a few common, Christian 
experiences. Cannot every Christian reader 
say: 

I am living in a hostile world. The world 
of humanity lieth in wickedness. It is un- 


THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD 47 


friendly to Christ and therefore to me. “The 
friendship of the world is enmity with God’’? 

Even nature is often in an angry mood. Her 
elements are sometimes dangerous and threat- 
ening. I am so helpless over against their fury. 


I am frequently filled with fears and forebod- 

ings. In such situations what kink ft 

do I need? Like a trembling child I Want'a_ 

father. Then I think of and fly to God the > NS 
Father. I recall that ‘‘as a father pitieth his SS 
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 

him.” This God is almighty. He is good. 

He loves me. He promises to be with me, to 

protect me. I read Isaiah 43. 1, 2—‘‘Fear not, 

for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee 

by thy name, thou art mine. When thou pass- 

est through the waters, I will be with thee; 

and through the rivers, they shall not over- 

flow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, 

thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the 

flame kindle upon thee.”” I read again Psalm 

23 and 91. I ponder anew Mt. 6. 19-34 and 

Rom. 8. 31-39. And this God is my Father! 

What a Father! Why should I be afraid? 

At other times my sins rise up before me. 
They show me my unworthiness, my guilt, 
my condemnation. God has expressed His 
will in His law. His law demands perfect 


48 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


obedience, perfect love: ‘Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with 
all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.” 
“Cursed is every one that abideth not in all 
things that are written in the law to do them.” 
But I never did, I never could keep this holy 
law. Oh my sin, my sin, woe is me, I am 
undone! 

At such a time I fear to flee to the glorious 
and holy Giver of the Law. I cannot fly to 
Sinai. Whither shall I gor What shall I 
dor I need God as a Redeemer, a Saviour 
from sin. I recall that Jesus Christ is God, 
that He and the Father are one, that He came 
to save me from my sin. 

I read again the old, old Passion Story. I 
see again how He who knew no sin was made 
sin for me. He was made a curse for me. I 
am moved. Iammelted. I read again Psalm 
51. I repeat again Luther’s explanation of 
the second Article of the Apostles’ Creed. I 
noté;the {cli “thesime/s the iniy ea es ae 
means me. In God the Son I find the God I 
need. I believe, I am comforted. 

It is said of Martin Luther that at one time 
the devil came to him and held up before him 
a long and frightful list of his sins. In great | 


THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD $49 


consternation Luther gazed upon the list and 
recognized it as correct. Anguish and despair 
were laying hold of his soul. Then he be- 
thought himself. His face lighted up and he 
cried: ““Alway, thou accuser, thou liar! These 
sins are no longer mine. Jesus Christ took 
them away from me and took them upon 
Himself. Go, settle with Him.” And the 
devil fled. Luther had found in God the Son 
the God he needed at that time. 

Again, at other times, my faith grows weak, 
my love grows cold. The flame of my inner 
life flickers low. My soul is drying up. My 
spiritual pulse is weak. I am spiritually sick. 
The fervor and joy of my former experience 
are waning. I do not delight myself in God 
as I once did. He seems so far away. I am 
spiritually so drowsy. I am threatened with 
falling from Grace. 

I am aroused. I am disturbed. I become 
distressed. What shall I do? Howcan I re- 
turn? How can these dry bones live? How 
can I get back my former life and love and 
joy and peacer 

I recall the third Person in the Trinity. 
The Holy Ghost is God. He is the Life- 
giver, the Sanctifier, the Comforter. I read 
again the wonderful fourteenth, fifteenth, and 


Luth, Fundamentals, 4, 


50 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


sixteenth chapters of John. I study the refer- 
ence passages. I read and pray over Luther’s 
explanation of the Third Article of the Apos- 
thes’ Creed.T see myisin.«: D repent ofige t 
fly to God the Holy Ghost, the Lord and 
Giver of Life, who with the Father and the 
Son together is worshiped and glorified. “He 
restoreth my soul.” He breathes new life in- 
to my cold heart. I am renewed. I am happy. 

And so I need the Triune God who is Fa- 
ther, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Christian ex- 
perience demands the Trinity. The doctrine 
of the Trinity is a precious possession of the 
soul. It is Fundamental. 


The Attributes of God. 


There are certain qualities in the Nature, 
Being, and Essence of God that mark Him off 
and separate Him from all other beings. 
They differentiate Him from every creature. 
They are possessions of His nature without 
which He would not be God. They are helps 
for us poor finite creatures in our endeavors 
to get clearer ideas of the Infinite. In a sense 
they are marks that help us to know God as 
God. Taken together they characterize God 
for us. 

We note them here only in so far as they 


THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD © 51 


assist us in getting a possibly clearer concep- 
tion of God as He is in Himself, and also as 
He is in relation to His creation and in rela- 
tion to ourselves. 

We have shown above that God is the one 
Absolute Being. He claims the attribute of 
Absoluteness for Himself. In Isaiah 43. 10 
He says: “J am He: before me there was no 
God formed, neither shall there be after me. 
I, even I, am Jehovah.” In Ex. 3. 14 He says 
to Moses: “I Am That I Am.” Sometimes 
translated: I Am Because I Am. 

God is infinite. In His perfections He can- 
not be limited or searched out. Psalm 145. 3, 
“His greatness is unsearchable.” Job 11. 7, 
“Canst thou by searching find out God? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
tion?” 

God is eternal. He is without beginning 
or end. What we call time does not count 
with Him. There is neither past nor future 
with Him. He knows only the everlasting 
present. Psalm 90. 2, “Even from everlasting 
to everlasting thou art God.” 1 Tim. 1. 17, 
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisi- 
ble, the only God, be honor and glory forever 
and ever. Amen.” 

God is omnipresent. His presence is every- 


52 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


where and everywhen. Jer. 23. 24, “Do not 
I fill heaven and earth? saith Jehovah.” 
1 Kings 8. 27, “Behold, heaven and _ the 
heaven of heavens cannot contain the.” 
Psalm 139. 7-10, “‘Whither shall I flee from 
thy presencer If I ascend up into heaven, 
thou gartithere,af bo make? myy bedein hell 
behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of 
the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, 
and thy right hand shall hold me.” 

God is unchangeable. 

Mal. 3. 6, “I, Jehovah, change not.”’ Psalm 
LOZ 020: 27. “They shall perish, but Thou 
shalt aay yea, all of them shall wax old 
like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change 
them, and they shall be changed. But Thou 
art the same.” James 1. 17, ‘The Fatheriot 
lights with whom is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning.” 

God is omnipotent. He is the Almighty 
one. There is no limit to His power. This 
does not mean that He can do things contra- 
dictory to His nature. His nature and attri- 
butes imply certain necessary self-limitations. 
He cannot do wrong and remain the God that 
He is. 

Heb. 6. 18, “It is impossible for God to lie.” 


THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD - 53 


He cannot sin. To do this would be to un- 
god Himself. He can do all things consistent 
with His holy will. Holy Will is His nature. 
2 Tim. 2. 13, “He cannot deny Himself.” In 
this sense God is omnipotent. Psalm 115. 3, 
“Our God is in the heavens; He hath done 
- whatsoever He pleased.” Psalm 135. 6, 
‘‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in 
heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep 
places.” Mt. 19. 26, “With God all things 
are possible.” Luke 18. 27, “The things that 
aré impossible with man are possible with 
God.” The attribute of omnipotence is so 
self-evident that we need discuss it no further. 

The same is true of His attribute of om- 
niscience. This means that He knows all 
things. Without this attribute He could not 
be. God. , Prov. 15..3, “The eyes.of the Lord 
are in every place beholding the evil and the 
good.” Psalm 139. 1-3, “O Lord, Thou hast 
searched me and known me. Thou knowest 
my downsitting and mine uprising. Thou un- 
derstandest my thoughts afar off. Thou com- 
passest my path and my lying down, and art 
acquainted with all my ways.” 

God is good. His goodness shines out in 
His love and mercy, and is also so self-evident 
that we need not dwell on it here. His good- 


54 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


ness, His lovingkindness, His tender mercy 
stand forth on every page of the Bible. 

Without a firm belief in these primary 
attributes of God, without a living and abid- 
ing experience of them, we could never have 
written this book. Every true believer knows 
by blessed experience that God is good, that 
His mercies are new every morning, that His 
lovingkindness brightens and blesses every 
day. 

All the attributes of God are fundamental 
to the believer’s idea and concept of God. All 
are fundamental to his experience of God. 


CHAPTER III 
The Works of God. — Revelation. 


HE great, outstanding works of God are 
Creation, Preservation, Redemption, 
Renewal, and Revelation. Without the last 
we could not know, understand, or be helped 
by the other four. For this reason we con- 
sider the last first and and now look at, and 
look into, God’s work of revealing Himself, 
or making Himself known to man. 

In chapter two we anticipated the fact of 
Revelation, took it for granted and used it as 
argument, proof, and explanation. ‘That 
chapter would not be complete without this 
one. 

There are many errors, doubts, and misgiv- 
ings as to the Bible as God’s Revelation. 
There is bitter, determined, and persistent op- 
position to belief in divine Revelation. The 
opposition often parades itself under the guise 
of scholarship and critical research. Un- 
counted thousands, many of them good peo- 


: 55 


56 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS . 


ple, have been troubled, misled, and plunged 
into hopeless unbelief by this opposition. 

Christians still believe that God_has re- 
vealed Himself and His holy will in His 
Word, which they call the Bible. 

When we come to study man as a fallen and 
sinful creature, we shall see more clearly how 
sorely man needs a revelation from on high. 
When we study God’s work of Creation, we 
shall see how the Creator reveals Himself al- 
so in nature. Here we deal with the Revela- 
tion written in the Holy Scriptures. 

If we believe what is written above as to the 
Existence, Being, Nature, and Attributes of 
God, we cannot doubt that this God can reveal 
Himself to man. Then we also know that 
such a God would want the children of His 
creation to know what His will is concerning 
them. Especially would such a God want 
His fallen, helpless, and hopeless children to 
know His good and gracious will. This Rev- 
elation of Himself and of His loving purpose 
concerning us we have in the old, familiar 
Book, the Bible. 

Look at it. It is made up of sixty-six sepa- 
rate writings, which we call the books of the 
Bible. It is an old Book. It was nearly a 
thousand and a half years before Christ when 


THE WORKS OF GOD 57 


Moses began to write. Altogether about forty 
different writers have taken part in writing 
our Bible. From the time when Moses began 
to write until John, the last writer, was done, 
a millenium and a half had rolled around and 
away. 

These writers lived in different lands, in 
different ages. They did not all write in the 
same language. Few of them knew each other. 
When one was writing he did not know that— 
or what—another would write. 

When at last, after careful, continued and 
painstaking investigation, the writings of 
these forty men were eelenina from other 
extant writings, they were arranged and put 
together, each one into its own place. ‘They 
made a complete Book, a consistent Book, a 
Book without a self-contradiction if rightly 
understood. 

The contents of this Book of books cover 
the widest range. There is not a human in- 
terest that is not touched. The deepest ques- 
tions that ever troubled a human soul find in 
these pages a real answer. Here we have His- 
tory, Biography, Poetry, Philosophy, Proph- 
ecy, Gospel, Experience, Doctrine, and 
Ethics. Here the seeking soul finds instruc- 


58 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


tion, admonition, warning, reproof, promise, 
encouragement, comfort, and peace. 

From beginning to end, from the promise 
of the seed of the woman to the last verse of 
John’s Revelation, the Bible looks to, and cen- 
ters around, one Personality. The heart, the 
life-nerve, the living center is the old, old 
story of Jesus and His love. That story, that 
Personality, that Character, that life, that 
work! In all the annals of history, in all the 
pages of literature, there is nothing like it. It 
is the life blood of the Bible. It has engaged, 
it has fascinated, it has amazed, it has con- 
founded, it has overcome the keenest intellects 

‘~among men. True, some wonder, doubt, and 
go their way. 
e often think of a story that our brilliant 
/ pisiewe the revered and sainted Doctor 
Mann, once told us in class: 

In the days of that distinguished and 
unusually bright circle of French skeptics 
and atheists called the Encyclopedists, at 
one of their evening gatherings, the con- 
versation turned to the personality, charac- 
ter, and life of Jesus. One of the number 
expressed his wonder that such a character 
could have been invented and such a life 
portrayed and carried consistently through to 


THE WORKS OF GOD 59 


such an end. Others questioned whether 
such a character, life, and story could be 
conceived and written now. One of them 
claimed that he could do it. The assembly 
requested him to undertake the task. He 
agreed. He went home and went to work. 
He studied, investigated, planned, and ar- 
ranged. He began to write. His imaginary 
character got into difficulties. He threw 
away his manuscript and began anew. Again 
he found that he could not carry his hero 
consistently through. He made a number of 
attempts. He failed. He came back to his 
congeners and said: ‘Gentlemen, it can’t be / 
done!” 

The brilliant Frenchman was right. The 
unaided human mind cannot fabricate a Jesus 
Christ and make up His story. Another 
Frenchman with a wonderful imagination, 
with rarely paralleled gifts as a writer, did 
concoct a so-called Life of Jesus. Renan 
wrote a brilliant romance, a novel cast in the 
mold of Parisian life. But— what a carica- 
ture! With all its bright picture-painting, 
many pages and paragraphs are revolting, dis- 
gusting, and impossible. The human mine 
cannot portray the Divine. Man cannot cre- 
ate God. To imagine, to fabricate Jesus 


60 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Christ and His Gospel, would be a greater 
miracle than is the Christ Himself. No one 
can know man but the spirit of man that is 
in man. And no one can reveal the Christ 
of God but the Spirit of God. Jesus Christ 
is the outstanding center and subject of the 
Bible. ‘The whole Old ‘Testament looks for- 
ward to, and finds its explanation in, Him. 
The New is the Testament of Jesus Christ. 
He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
and the end, the first and the last of God’s 
revelation. Without Him the Bible has no 
meaning. We believe the Bible because it 
gives us our Saviour. We search the Scrip- 
tures. ‘They testify of Christ. In Christ we 
have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salva- 
tion. 

We look again at the Bible. This Book 
has been hated, assailed, and abused as has 
no other book in the world. The keenest 
intellects among men have spoken and written 
againstit. The natural heart dislikes it. The 
old Adam hates it. Why? Because of its 
humiliations. It paints every man’s true por- 
trait. It opens up the innermost depths of 
his soul. It makes him out a poor, helpless, 
hopeless, lost, and guilty sinner. It shows 
him that there is no help, no hope in himself 


THE WORKS OF GOD 61 


as long as he is left to himself. It demands 
of him that he recognize and realize that he 
is a sinner, that he feel, lament, and confess 
his guilt. It shows him that he needs to come 
as a beggar holding out an empty hand, plead- 
ing for mercy; that his only hope and help 
is, that he fly to the Lord Jesus Christ for 
refuge and salvation. 

To human nature, proud, self-sufficient, 
self-righteous, this is humiliating. It is ob- 
noxious. The natural man hates the Book 
that tells him all this. He is willing to take 
pains, to pay money, to satisfy himself that 
the Old Book is not true. Like the would- 
be infidel in Ohio who said: “I don’t believe 
in a hereafter. I don’t believe in a hell.” 
Then, as if musing to himself he added: 
“Still I would give my best yoke of oxen 
if I could be sure.” 

Yes, men hate the Bible. They don’t want 
to receive or believe it. Every conceivable 
effort has been made to discredit or destroy it. 
The kings of the earth have set themselves . 
against it. Rulers have conspired together 
against it. Some of the mightiest emperors 
that ever sat upon the throne of Rome, when 
that throne ruled the world, set themselves 
the task to put out of existence every copy 


62 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


and every part of the Christian Scriptures. 
They issued imperial proclamations; they 
sent out spies to search their lands and their 
inhabitants for copies or books of the Sacred 
writings. Wherever such a writing was found 
it was burned, and the owner or reader was 
often burned with it. And this went on for 
generations. But the Book lived! 

We bear in mind also that in those dark 
days there were no printing presses. The 
separate books of the Scriptures existed in 
parchment form. ‘The large square letters 
had to be carefully made and copied by hand. 
There were comparatively few copies in ex- 
istence. Here and there a little group of 
believers or a rich man owned a parchment 
containing the Books of Moses, the Psalms, 
Isaiah, the Gospel of John, Paul’s Letter to 
the Romans, or some other book of the Bible. 
It cost more to own one of the manuscripts 
than to build a house or buy a farm. 

These parchments could not be hidden from 
sight and search as easily as can our pocket 
Testaments or India paper Bibles. Yet the 
Scriptures survived. 

There existed at that time other valued 
writings, the products of profound and bril- 
liant minds among the heathen. Every effort 


THE WORKS OF. GOD 63 


was made that these writings might be pre- 
served and handed down to posterity. Many 
of them were lost. ‘Their names and titles 
alone exist. 

What a contrast: 

Here is one set of rare writings. Every- 
thing was done that could be done to destroy 
them from the face of the earth. ‘They sur- 
vived. Here are other writings. Everything 
was done that could be done to preserve them. 
They are gone. 

How explain it? There is only one ex- 
planation. The same God who gave His 
Holy Scriptures watched over, guarded and 
preserved them. He has made good His 
promise: ‘‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my Word shall not pass away.” We have 
it with us still. 

And we believe, teach, and confess that the 
Book with such other-worldly contents, with 
such a history, is the inspired Word of God. 
We believe that holy men of God spake and 
- wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
The Holy Spirit inspired it. Men wrote it. 
It is God’s Book, given to us through men. 
Like Christ, it is both divine and human. 

Every true believer can say: 

I believe that it is God’s Book. It reveals 


64 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


so much that the unaided mind of man could 
never have known. It knows the hidden se- 
crets of man’s soul as the soul itself could never 
have known them. It knows and lays bare 
the secret springs of human nature as no mere, 
unaided man could do. It found me. It 
discovered me to myself. It made me see 
and know myself as I am by nature. It showed 
me what I need, where and how to get what 
I need. It meets me in my perplexity. It 
leads me into the light of a better world. 
Out of the darkness and death of sin, into 
the light and life of grace. It takes me to 
the wells of Salvation. It holds to my 
parched lips the living water. When I am 
weak and weary it feeds me with the manna 
of God, the Bread of Life from heaven. I 
am satisfied. My cup runneth over. 

Is it too much to claim for such a Book 
that it has God for its author, that it has Christ 
for its subject, that is has salvation for its end? 
It is—vyes it really is—the only Book on 
earth that was edited in heaven. This is 
fundamental. 

But it might still be asked: What shall 
we say to the multitudinous, widespread and 
popular criticism of the Bible? We might 
answer that this is nothing new. Faultfind- 


THE WORKS OF GOD 65 


ing criticism of God and of His Word is as 
old as the Garden of Eden. The devil was 
the first destructive critic. In every age of 
history hostile criticism has raised its head and 
made its claims. Modern negative criticism 
is offering little or nothing that is new. It 
is in the main rehashing the deistical argu- 
ments so rife in England in the eighteenth 
century and the more scholarly and subtle 
arguments of German Rationalism of a hun- 
dred years ago. It is threshing over old straw. 
All of its worth-while arguments have been 
scrutinized, criticized, answered, and refuted 
again and again. They have not overthrown a 
single clear fact or doctrine of the old Bible. 

The Bible and its friends have nothing to 
fear. We welcome all fair and unprejudiced 
right criticism. Our Fundamental beliefs on 
this point need no further apologetic here. 
Our Bible is its own best apologetic. Every 
true believer knows by blessed experience that 
it is of God. 

For the comfort of some possibly perplexed 
and doubtful reader we refer to this remark- 
able fact. There are scores of similar facts. 
They are occurring all the time. 

In the days when Deism was rife and pop- 
ular in England, two highly bred and cul- 


Luth, Pundamenials. 5. 


66 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


tured young friends met together and talked 
over the questions of the day, especially as 
they pertained to supernatural Revelation and 
miracle. Both shared the general conviction 
that no educated, intelligent, thinking person 
should hold any longer the old Christian 
beliefs concerning the Bible and its contents. 
Both of them, being scholarly gentlemen of 
leisure, believed it their duty to help along 
what they believed to be a rational criticism 


of the contents of the Bible. ‘They really 
wanted to assist in making men more intel- 


ligent by ridding them of unworthy super- 
stitutions. What could they do? After due 
consultation Lord Littleton set himself the 
task of showing that the Bible accounts of the 
Resurrection of Christ cannot be and are not 
true. Sir Gilbert West agreed that he would 
show up and prove the same things as to the 
Bible accounts of the Conversion of Paul. 

Both went earnestly to work. University 
libraries were at their disposal. They spared 
neither labor nor pains. They made all the 
earnest and honest research they could com- 
mand. They were sincere. They wanted to 
know and set forth the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth. 

What was the result? 


THE WORKS OF GOD 67 


Lord Littleton wrote a book which exam- 
ined in minute detail the story of Christ’s 
Resurrection, noted and criticized all argu- 
ments against it, vindicated the reality of the 
resurrection, and triumphantly proclaimed to 
the world his own unshakable belief that now 
is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
first-fruits of them that slept. 

Sir Gilbert West did the same thing as to 
the story of Paul’s conversion. 

So much for honest research and criticism. 
The two remarkable little books of these two 
remarkable men have been published by The 
American Tract Society. Get them. Read 
them. 


CHAPTER IV 
Creation 


| ie the sake of convenience, because in that 
which follows we need to refer to an 
accepted written Word of God as our final 
authority, we discussed Revelation before 
Creation. Before Creation there was no such 
thing as time. God was eternal. ‘Time be- 
gan with creation. In time, creation was the 
first great work of God. 

From the earliest ages great thinkers among 
men have busied their brains in trying to ac- 
count for the existence of the universe, of our 
earth, and of its inhabitants. Out of their 
brains these speculative thinkers have spun 
the most weird, fantastic, and absurd theories 
as to the origin of the world and of man. 
The mythologies, cosmogonies, and fairy tales 
of creation form a strange commentary on 
the possible aberrations of the human mind. 

Over against all such vague and vain specu- 
lations we have the short, simple, straightfor- 
ward creation story of the Bible. 


68 


CREATION 69 


Look at it. How meaningful the first four 
words of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God.” 
God, the beginning. God, before all and 
beyond all. In the beginning God created. 
Before that beginning nothing existed outside 


of God. In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth. 


No man-made account of creation starts 
with a majestic ring like that. Here rings 
out a startling voice from another world. 

We are not told when this beginning was. 
There is no date here. Let us not forget this. 
There may have been countless ages during 
which the earth was without form and void 
and when darkness was upon the face of the 
deep. During these primoridial ages, if such 
there were, the Spirit of God was moving or 
brooding upon the waters. 

After this introductory statement, which 
gives us the big, undated fact, we have the 
ordered account of the progressive creation 
out of the now existing chaos. We have first 
the creation of light and the separating of 
night from day. ‘Then the separating of the 
firmament from the earth. ‘hen the sep- 
arating of the waters on the earth from the 
land. Then the calling forth of vegetation 
from the earth. ‘Then the creation of the 


70 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars. 
Then the fishes in the rivers and seas. Then 
the fowls of the air. Then the creeping things 
on the earth. Then the higher animals, the 
quadrupeds, the mammals. And then the 
crowning act, the creation of man in the image 
of God. 

This is the story. Here is order; here is 
progress. First the earth is made fit for 
production, for life. Then the heavenly 
bodies, to give the kind of light and heat 
needed for vegetable and animal life. Then 
animals, beginning with the lowest forms, then 
higher and higher, genus and species, each 
after its kind, each reproducing its own kind. 

And this is the order of science. Nature 
herself, God’s secondary revelation, tells the 
same story. Geology reveals the same order. 
In the rock-layers, the strata, the internal 
masonry of God, Geology finds the fossils of 
flora and fauna in the order of the first 
chapter of Genesis. 

Some students have been troubled by the 
division of the work of Creation into days. 
There is no real difficulty here. The Hebrew 
word for day is “Yom.” It has various 
meanings in the Bible. The first chapter 
of Genesis counts six ‘“Yoms,” or days, in 


CREATION 71 


the progressive story of creation. Genesis 
2. 4 calls the six Yoms, one: “In the day 


that the Lord made the earth and the 
heavens.” In 2 Pet. 3. 8 we are admonished: 
“Forget not this one thing, beloved, that one 
day is with the Lord as a thousand years and 
a thousand years as one day.” The whole 
present dispensation of grace is called a day. 
Thus in 2 Cor. 6. 2 we read: “Behold now 
is the accepted time, now is the day of sal- 
vation.” In Scripture usage the word day 
may mean an age-long period. 

But the main thing is not the exact measure 
of time but the fact and work of creation. 
Matter is not eternal. God is. Matter 
could not evolve a universe like this. It is 
more rational to believe that God created it 
all. Heb. 11.3: “Through faith we under- 
stand that the worlds were framed by the 
word of God, so that things which are seen 
were not made of things which do appear.” 
“T believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth.” 

We must still look at the creation of man, 
the crowning work of God. 

The earth had been made ready. The 
Mineral Kingdom had been established and 
systematically arranged in its bowels. The 


72 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Vegetable Kingdom had covered its surface 
with verdure, fruit and beauty. The Animal 
Kingdom had made its waters, its woods, its 
fields, and its air teem with living creatures. 
But there was as yet no earthly lord of cre- 
ation. Man would not belong to, and could 
not fit into, any of the three Kingdoms. 

One of the early, good kings of Prussia once 
visited a public school. He loved children. 
He explained to them the three Kingdoms 
Then he asked the school: “Now to which 
Kingdom do I belong?” A little girl held up 
her hand and answered: “To the Kingdom 
of God.” She was right. For this Kingdom 
God made man. Every man who is not in 
this Kingdom is out of the place for which he 
was intended. 

Man’s creation shows this. Before God 
created man, He had caused the earth to bring 
forth life. That there might be a Vegetable 
Kingdom, His creative and creating Word 
said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the 
herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding 
fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself up- 
on the earth,” and it was so. 

And that there might be an Animal King- 
dom, the same Fiat-Word said: “Let the 
waters bring forth abundantly the moving 


CREATION 73 


creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly 
above the earth in the open firmament of heav- 
en.” And so the earth and its waters pro- 
duced the living things and the air was made 
to swarm with life and music. All this be- 
fore man and for man. 

Now the Creator makes a new start. His 
work is not yet completed. It is not yet 
crowned. 

God pauses. He takes counsel with Him- 
self. As if musing aloud as to this great 
crowning act, this special creation, He says, 
‘Let us make man in our image, after our like- 
ness.” Had He said anything like this when 
He made the lower animals? No; He had 
made the waters and the earth bring them 
forth. Of man alone He says, “Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness.” If this 
does not mean that the making of man was a 
separate act, a special creation, apart from and 
different from all the other work of creation, 
then language has no meaning. He says fur- 
ther of this His special, crowning creature: 
“Tet them have dominion over the fish of the 
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the 
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” 
The inspired historian sums it all up and 


44 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


says: “So God created man in His own image, 
in the image of God created He him; male 
and female created He them.” Let the reader 
read over again the first two chapters of his 
Bible. This is God-inspired history. 

Let us look briefly at man as made in the 
image of God. What does it meaner There 
has been much deep, elaborate, useless, and 
confusing speculation as to this. For the or- 
dinary, average believer it is enough to know 
that the image, or likeness, of God, in which 
He made man, means that God made him with 
special spiritual endowments, by the right use 
of which he was able to know, have fellowship 
with, and imitate God in righteousness and 
holiness of truth. Luther says: ‘When 
Moses says that man was made in God’s image 
he shows thereby that man is not only like 
God in having reason, or understanding, and 
a will, but especially that he is confronted 
to God, that is, he has such understanding 
and will as to understand God, and will what 
God wills.” 

The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, 
which Apology is one of the Creeds of the 
Lutheran Church, says: “That in man there 
were embodied such wisdom and righteous- 
ness as apprehended God and in which God 


CREATION 75 


was reflected; that is, to man there were given 
the gifts of the knowledge of God, the fear of 
God, confidence in God, and the like.” 

We look again at man as he came forth 
from the hand of his Creator. As to manner 
or method of his making, Gen. 2. 7 tells us: 
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust 
of the ground and breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of his life; and man became a liv- 
ing soul.” God made man of two parts: a 
body and a soul. God formed the body out 
of the dust of the ground. As to his body, 
man’s origin is from the soil; it is of the earth, 
earthy. 

One of the younger of the natural sciences, 
Chemistry, has demonstrated that there is not 
an element or substance in man’s body that is 
not found in the soil of the earth. The physi- 
cal body is closely related to ground. True 
science always agrees with the Word of God. 
God’s works cannot contradict God’s Word. 

“Mother Earth” is what man often calls the 
ground. It is a good name. To man’s body 
the earth is a good mother. She provides 
abundantly for his bodily life. Is he hungry? 
The earth provides vegetables, grains, and 
fruits. Huis meat he gets from earth-nourished 
creatures. Is he thirsty? ‘The earth furnishes 


76 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


water and other drinks distilled from her 
plants and fruits. Does he need clothing? 
The cotton and the flax, the silk and the wool, 
from earth-nourished creatures, provide him. 
Does he need shelter, a place for rest and com- 
fort? From the mines and forest he gets ma- 
terial to build him a home in which to pre- 
pare his food and to furnish heat when needed. 
Does he have the desire for sex? Earthy 
bodies have been made by God. Male and 
female created He them. Yes, man’s body 
was made from earth. It can live from the 
earth. When man’s bodily life is ended, 
Mother Earth opens her bosom; and the body, 
till the resurrection morn, goes back, earth to 
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

We are not done with man. We are not 
Materialists. Neither are we Sadducees. God 
was not done with man after He had formed 
his body out of the dust of the ground. I[n- 
to that earthy body God breathed His breath, 
the breath of life. Now after this inbreath- 
ing, there was something in man that was not 
out of the ground, not of the earth, earthy. 
Now he had in him, as part of him, something 
from another world, something from heaven. 
Now he had in him the breath of God. Now 
he could say: ‘The spirit of the Lord hath 


CREATION 77 


made and the breath of the Almighty hath 
given me life.” Now he was related to two 
worlds. 

The soul is not only a part of man, but it 
is the chief part. The soul, thus originally 
made, the soul, the breath of God, makes man 
man. Such a soul forever differentiates man 
from the brute. Into what brute, into what 
ape, did God ever breathe a soul? 

The soul has its wants, its longings, its 
yearnings, its upreachings, its outcryings. It 
has no Mother Earth. No earth, no world of 
man, can ever satisfy the soul. The Bread of 
Life, the bread from heaven, the manna from 
above, alone can satisfy soul-hunger. The 
Water of Life alone, Christ’s living and life- 
giving Water alone, can satisfy soul-thirst. 
The robe of Christ’s righteousness alone can 
fitly clothe the soul. And the resurrection 
body is the house not made with hands, with 
which the soul will be clothed and made eter- 
nally and perfectly happy in the House of 
many mansions in heaven. The pleasures of 
the world can never satisfy the soul. The 
riches of the world can never still its yearn- 
ings.* 








* For a further discussion of man’s relation to the soil read 
chapters one and two of The Lutheran Church in the Country. 


78 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


With Shakespeare we may admire man 
and say: “What a piece of work is man! 
How noble in reason! How infinite in facul- 
ty! In form and moving how expressive and 
admirable! In action how like an angel! In 
apprehension how like a god!” 

But with Augustine we can more truthfully 
say and pray: “Thou hast made us for Thy- 
self, O God. Therefore we are without rest 
until we rest in Thee.” 

The Bible story of the creation of man, the 
Bible view of the nature, capacity, powers, 
and destiny of man satisfy a reasonable man’s 
own thinking. This explanation of man’s ori- 
gin and nature gives a resting place to the in- 
quiring mind. Man can think it through and 
arrive at a point of peace. 

But from the beginning there have been 
those who have been unwilling to accept 
God’s own account of His creation. They will 
not believe His Word. ‘The devil was the 
first agnostic, the first skeptic, the first infidel. 
He whispered his unbelief into the ear of 
Mother Eve. He made her believe that God 
is not good, that His Word is not true, that 
to disobey, to sin, would bring sense-gratifi- 
cation and intellectual advance and advantage. 
The devil perverted Eve, she perverted Adam. 


CREATION 79 


The race that was in Adam’s loins fell.—Of 
this more hereafter when we study sin. 

From that time forth the children of Adam, 
as long as they were in their natural state, un- 
changed, unrenewed, when they knew or 
might have known God, “they glorified Him 
not as God, neither were thankful, but became 
vain in their reasonings and their senseless 
heart was darkened. Professing themselves to 
be wise, they became fools, and changed the 
glory of the incorruptible God into an image 
made like to corruptible man and to birds 
and four-footed beasts and creeping things... 
For they exchanged the truth of God for a 
lie and worshiped and served the creature 
more than the Creator, who is blessed for- 
ever.’ Read Romans 1. 16-32. Here you 
find God’s inspired delineation of Darwinian 
Evolution. 

Naturalistic, materialistic evolution pro- 
fesses to describe, to portray, to set forth in an 
elaborate system, the origin, development, and 
progress of man. It utterly ignores God’s 
Revelation. It goes on the supposition that 
man must dig out, and make up, his own his- 
tory. That for which he can find no historic 
basis, he must invent, hypothecate; and then, 
on his own fancied hypotheses or guesses, he 


80 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


must build a system and call it Science. His 
fellow men must accept his fabrications, his 
invented system, his science, falsely so-called, 
or be dubbed as credulous dupes, ignoramuses, 
followers of senseless traditions, men living in 
the Dark Ages, content with outworn creeds 
and wilfully blind to the new light of this 
new age. 

The writer of this, along with thousands of 
other sincere, serious, and earnest seekers after 
truth, utterly repudiates such arrogant epi- 
thets. ‘There is, and has been, probably more 
persistent, prayerful, painstaking search and 
research for truth on the part of conservative 
Christians than on the part of flippant, credu- 
lous unbelievers and liberals. 

We cannot here enter into a full discussion 
of Darwinian Evolution. This would not fit 
into the province or plan of this book. Since, 
however, evolution is so persistent in its propa- 
ganda, since it is so insidiously instilled into 
our children and youth from the public kin- 
dergarten up through grammar grades, high 
schools, state Normals, and universities, we 
cannot entirely ignore it. 

We can only enumerate, and call attention 
to, a few of its positions that have been pointed 
out by so many of its able opponents as utter- 


CREATION 81 


ly unscientific: We charge the proponents and 
defenders of naturalistic evolution that they 
have utterly failed to show what was, or to ex- 
plain, the origin of matter or force or life. 

They have utterly failed to show how the 
lifeless clod could produce vegetable life. 
They have utterly failed to show how vegeta- 
ble life could evolve into, or produce, sen- 
tient animal life. 

They have utterly failed to show how mere 
sentient animal life could evolve into, or pro- 
duce life, intellectual life, or how mere in- 
tellectual life could evolve into, or produce, 
spiritual life, life in conscious, happy, blessed 
communion with God. They fail to account 
for a Christian man. Look again at their 
lower failures. 

They have utterly failed to show how the 
invertebrate animals could, or did, evolve into 
the vertebrates. They have utterly failed to 
show that one species ever evolved into an- 
other. They have been challenged again and 
again to show a single instance. They have 
none. When a hybrid or neutral, like the 
mule, is produced, that hybrid is sterile. Evo- 
lutionists have failed to show a single excep- 
tion. Nature jealously guards her species. 
Each species brings forth according to God’s 
original fiat “after its kind.” 


Luth. Fundamentals. 6. 


82 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Natural Evolutionists have no explanation 
even of the origin of physical man. There is 
not a scintilla of evidence that man has 
evolved from the ape. All research, all inves- 
tigation, all evidence, shows that man, as we 
have portrayed him above, did not, and could 
not, evolve from a brute. The missing link 
is still missing! It will be. 

No, no. Unassisted Nature knows and 
shows no push from below upward. There 
must ever be a pull from above upward. 
There is, there can be, no spontaneous genera- 
tion. The lifeless cannot generate life. Life 
can only come from life. Natural and ma- 
terialistic evolution is unscientific. 

The old Creation story is scientific. It 
answers a thousand questions before which 
godless naturalists and scientists are dumb. It 
satisfies sanctified common sense. ‘To the re- 
newed mind it is the highest reason. 


For further light on Evolution we advise the every-day man 
or woman to read: 

“The First Page of the Bible,” by Bettex. 

“Evolution,” by Prof. Th. Graebner. 

“Evolution at the Bar,” by Philip Mauro. 

“In His Image,” by Wm. Jennings Bryan. 

“Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation,” by 
George McCready Price. Also his: “Back to the Bible.” 

“The Lie of the Age,” by Wm. Shoeler. 


CREATION 83 


The Creation of Angels. 


We have studied Creation especially as it 
is related to, and includes, man. We have 
looked at the material things and the physical 
creatures. But there are also existences that 
are neither material nor visible. ‘There are 
beings that do not have bodies like ours. 
There are spiritual beings that are called 
angels. They are creatures. God created 
them. He created all that exists. We do not 
have the story of God’s creation of the angels. 
God did not reveal it to us as He did the story 
of His creation of man. The story of man’s 
creation looked forward to the story of man’s 
redemption. Good angels never needed to be 
redeemed. Bad angels could not be redeemed. 
For angels no Saviour died. Christ did not 
take upon himself the form of an angel, but 
He was made in the likeness of man, in the 
likeness of sinful flesh. Angels are in a sep- 
arate class. ‘They are not, as creatures, re- 
lated to the human family. This may be a 
reason why God did not give us a full account 
of their creation. But God did reveal the 
fact of their creation. In Col. 1. 16 we read: 
“For by Him were all things created that are 
in heaven and that are in earth, visible and 


84 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


invisible, whether thrones or dominions or 
principalities or powers; all things were 
created by Him and for Him.” This is all 
we know of the fact. It is enough. 

The time of their creation we do not know. 
The writer of the Book of Job in chapter 1. 6 
calls them “‘sons of God.” In chapter 38. 4, 7, 
God asks Job: ‘Where wast thou when I 
laid the foundations of the earthe . . . when 
the morning stars sang together and all the 
sons of God shouted for joy?” The sons of 
God in this place are generally understood 
to have been angels. They were created be- 
fore the earth. This is all that we know of 
the time of their creation. It is enough. 

The angels are spirits or spiritual beings. 
Sometimes God enables them to take on bodily 
form. They have the attributes of personal- 
ity. The Bible shows that they stand high 
in intelligence, in powers of mind and reason. 
They do not possess divine attributes or pow- 


ers. They are neither omnipresent nor omni- 
scient. They are immortal. As God made 


them, they were all sinless and holy. Good 
angels are still so. They are a mighty host. 
In numbers they are countless. Dan. 7. 10: 
“Thousands of thousands ministered unto 
Him and ten thousand times ten thousand 


CREATION 85 
stood before Him.” Matt. 26. 53: “He shall 


even now send me more than twelve legions 
of angels.” There are ranks among them. 
There are angels and archangels. Michael 
and Gabriel are archangels. There are prin- 
cipalities and powers in heavenly places. 
The angels are all ministering spirits. They 
serve God day and night. They behold His 
face, await His commands, go on His errands 
of protection, rescue, help, and render services 
to man. The Bible is full of beautiful ref- 
erences and stories of their loving ministries 
to the children of God. We can refer to but 
a few. Angels were present and interested 
in Creation. They had a part in giving the 
Law. A host of them protected Elisha, slew 
the Assyrians, and fought against the prince 
of Persia. They were specially interested in 
God’s great work of Redemption. They de- 
sire to look into its mysteries. An angel an- 
nounced the birth of Christ. An angel choir 
sang the first Christmas anthem. An angel 
protected the Infant Saviour. They ministered 
to Him in His temptation and in His agony 
in Gethsemane. They rolled away the stone 
from the sepulcher, announced His Resurrec- 
tion, His Ascension, and His coming again 


86 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


to Judgment. Inthe Judgment they will take 
a prominent part. 

Time and room would fail us to tell of 
their loving ministries to Abraham, and to 
Lot, and Jacob; to Daniel, to Lazarus, to Pe- 
ter, and Paul. And eternity alone will reveal 
how often these unknown, unseen ministers of 
mercy came down from heaven, protected en- 
dangered children, rescued God’s redeemed 
ones, and helped them over hard places. In 
heaven, dear reader, you and I will learn 
something of how often these our invisible 
guardians saved us from perishing. 

Yes, it is still true, however much we may 
forget or ignore it; it is a precious comfort 
of God that “the angel of the Lord encampeth 
round about them that fear Him, and deliver- 
eth them.” God still gives “His angels charge 
over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” All 
His angels are “ministering spirits.” He sends 
them forth to minister to, “to serve them that 
are heirs to salvation.””’ How much we lose 
when we forget the comforting, eae UT 
doctrine of the angels! 

There is another—an unpleasant — fact 
about the angels that we dare not leave out 
nor forget. God has revealed it. We dare 
not ignore or doubt God’s facts. 


CREATION 87 


It seems to be in the mind, plan, and pur- 
pose of God that He will give to all His ra- 
tional creatures an opportunity of being tested 
and a power of choice. In God’s mind this 
seems to be necessary to develop His creatures, 
to strengthen them, to make of them free 
moral agents. 

The angels also had their testing time. 
Jude in verse 6 speaks of “the angels which 
kept not their first estate, but left their own 
habitation.” ‘This states the fact. From other 
Scripture passages we gather that a chief, 
a prince, fell from his high estate. Jesus says, 
Luke 10. 18, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall 
from heaven.” In Mt. 12. 24 he is called 
“the prince of the demons.” Paul intimates 
that this prince, this leader fell through pride: 
1 Tim. 3.6. “Lest being lifted up with pride 
he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” 
Jesus calls him “a liar” and “a murderer from 
the beginning.” It seems that a multitude of 
the heavenly host were deceived and contam- 
inated by him. They joined him in his re- 
bellion. They became “his angels.” They 
were organized into “his kingdom.” With 
their chief they were cast out of heaven. Since 
man’s creation they have busied themselves 
tempting men to evil and trying to drag them 


88 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


into their own sin and guilt and condemna- 
tion. Milton brought his powerful imagina- 
tion to bear on this other-world tragedy and 
its consequences, and wrote what is, in many 
respects, the most wonderful epic poem ever 
conceived or composed by man. Milton was 
not inspired, but he had studied deeply and 
earnestly the inspired record of God. We 
cannot follow him in all his details, but we 
can learn much from him. 

There is a real devil. He has great power. 
He is the “strong man armed.” But he is 
not omnipotent. God is stronger. Neither 
is the devil omniscient. Nor is he omnipres- 
ent. But he has a well-organized kingdom. 
Legions of swift, subservient devils are under 
him, doing his bidding. Through them he 
brings his power to bear and tempts whom 
he will. He loves the shining mark. He 
aims high. He wants to get the leaders, the 
key-men. He is persistently out after min- 
isters of the Gospel, theological students, 
Christian leaders, deaconesses, Sunday-school 
and church workers. He works not only 
through under-devils, but also through devil- 
ish men. He tempted Eve and Job and Saul 
and David. He tempted Christ and Peter, 
and Judas and Paul. Personally and through 


CREATION 89 


his under-imps he is still “going to and fro 
in the earth” and “walking up and down in 
it.” He still “as a roaring lion, walketh about, 
seeking whom he may devour.” 

We know that in our day belief in the ex- 
istence of a personal devil is scoffed at as a 
superstition unworthy of an intelligent man. 
But we know also that his real existence, his 
inexpressibly heinous character, his fiendish, 
hellish work, his unspeakable danger to every 
son and daughter of man have a big place in 
the Bible from its first pages to its last. If 
what the Bible says of a real devil and his 
work and danger is not true, how do I kncw 
that anything else is true? He no doubt 
rejoices in the widespread disbelief in his 
own existence. What could be more welcome 
to him than such unbelief? The men who 
believe that there is no devil will never be 
on their guard against him. ‘They are open 
to all his attacks. They become his easy prey. 
He laughs. 

In this, as in all things taught in the Bible, 
belief in a personal devil and in his invisible 
kingdom of darkness helps us to understand 
the ongoings in this old world of ours. We 
have often said that if we did not believe in 
a devil we should be dumfounded with our 


90 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


morning paper. Every issue is stained and 
befouled with stories of vice and crime, cru- 
elty and debauchery, that are enough to give 
one a perpetual horror. How can we under- 
stand such doings and undoings of man? How 
can man, with such God-given endowments, 
and capacities sink solowr How can he low- 
er himself below the brute? How can he 
be such a fiend? Oh, the inhumanities of man! 

I go back to the old Book. It tells me of 
the powers of darkness that work in and 
through men and women who love darkness 
rather than light. It tells me how such peo- 
ple wilfully turn their backs on God, on His 
teachings, on His goodness and truth; how 
they say of the blessed and Holy One, who 
would fain save them and their sin-steeped 
companions, “Let us break His bands asun- 
der; let us cast away His cords from us.” 
They yield themselves to the devil and his 
angels. They become children of the devil. 
They do the works of the devil. They are 
earthly, sensual, devilish. Inspiration has 
painted their portrait in the short Epistle of 
Jude, in 2 Peter, chapter 2, and in Romans I. 
I restudy these divine descriptions. I recall 
the passages quoted above. I have an answer; 
I have an explanation to the otherwise dis- 


CREATION QI 


tracting question. How can man be such a 
fiend incarnate? Now I can understand the 
gruesome human horrors chronicled by my 
morning paper. There isa devil. His “pow- 
ers of darkness” are “working in the children 
of disobedience.” ““An enemy hath done this.” 
Without him and his hellish influence man 
could not, and would not, fall so low. 

The light of Revelation dispels the dark- 
ness. Humanity is relieved. The old Book 
solves the problem. 

Belief in the existence of the devil and in 
his evil angels is so Biblical and so helpful 
to my poor understanding that it is fundamen- 
tal. 


CHAP LER AV, 
God’s Work of Providence. 


B* God’s providence we mean His proteci- 
ing and directing care over all things that 
He has created. ‘To us finites it seems only 
natural that the Almighty Maker of heaven 
and earth, and of all that is in them, should 
always be interested in all that He brought 
into being. It seems but natural that He 
should care for, rule, and govern all His 
works and all His creatures for their good and 
for His own glory. 

It would seem unnatural, it would be hard 
to believe, that the God that we believe in 
should, or consistently could, after the idea 
of the old Deists, create and arrange all this, 
and then withdraw from it, and leave it to 
itself without care or guidance or protection 
from Him who made it. 

Still more absurd and unbelievable would 
it be for us to lock upon our God as making 
Himself an immanent part of His creation, 
identifying Himself with it, so that nature, 

as we know it, would be God and God would 


92 


GOD'S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 93 


be nature. This is the teaching of Pantheism. 
It is a widespread and popular world-view. 
It is held by multitudes among the so-called 
high-brows. It runs through Eddyism and 
Theosophy. Such muddled thinking, such 
absurd conceptions are a disgrace to the hu- 
man intellect. Of all who try to make them- 
selves swallow such absurdities God says: 
“Professing themselves to be wise, they be- 
came fools.” 

Our God is ever active over and in His 
creation. His power directs all. His influ- 
ence is in all. He implanted the necessary, 
permanent forces in His created works. ‘These 
forces are part of His creation. He does not 
need to continue to create. ‘The heavens and 
the earth were finished.” Living things were 
made after their kind to reproduce and prop- 
agate their kind. No further direct creation 
was needed. 

The Providence of God sustains and regu- 
lates inanimate nature. Psalm 119. 90, “Thou 
hast established the earth, and it abideth.” 
Heb. 1. 3, “Upholding all things by the word 
of his power.” Col. 7. 17, “By Him all 
things consist.” Isaiah 29. 6, “Thou shalt be 
visited of the Lord of Hosts with thunder and 
with earthquake and great noise, with storm 


94 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.” 
Psalm 107. 25, 29, “For He commandeth and 
raiseth the stormy wind.” “He maketh the 
storm a calm.” Psalm 148. 8, “Fire and 
hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling 
His word.” Ez. 13. 11, “There shall be an 
overflowing shower; and ye, O great hail- 
stones, shall fall.” 

We might go on quoting passage after pas- 
sage showing that God watches over, directs 
and controls nature and its elemental forces. 
Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, sum- 
mer and winter, day and night are from Him. 

His Providence extends also over animate 
nature. Psalm 104. 10, 11, “He sendeth the 
springs into the valleys, which run among the 
hills. ‘They give drink to every beast of the 
field; the wild asses quench their thirst.” 
(Read the whole wonderful Psalm and look 
up the reference passages. ) 

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount points 
His disciples to the grass and flowers which 
God so beautifully clothes and to the birds 
which He feeds. God hears the cry of the 
raven, He notes the fall of the sparrow. The 
Bible is full of assurances that God watches 
over all vegetation and over all animal life. 
Thus all nature is constantly preaching the 
beauty, the goodness, the wisdom of God. 


a 


GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 95 


To note God’s interest in, and care for, His 
whole creation is an edifying study. There 
would not be so much of this in our Bible if 
the study of it were not good for us. But 
our highest interest is reached when we study 
God’s Providence as it relates to man. 

It takes in all humanity. ‘What is man 
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
man that thou visitest him?” This refers to 
mankind.. Isaiah 40. 15, 17, 22, “Behold the 
nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are 
counted as the small dust of the balance .. . 
All nations before him are as nothing; and 
they are counted to him less than nothing and 
vanity ... Itis he that sitteth upon the cir- 
cle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
are as grasshoppers.” God rooted out the cor- 
rupt and corrupting Canaanites and divided 
their land to the twelve tribes. He had di- 
vided the earth to the sons of Noah. Ps. 67. 4, 
“Thou shalt govern the nations upon earth.” 
Bible Story and Poetry and Prophecy are 
filled full with God’s providence and ruler- 
ship over the nations. All lands and all their 
peoples are under His control. 

For His own wise and good reasons, which 
we finite creatures cannot always understand, 
He has favored some nations above others. It 


96 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


is His good and gracious will that the more 
favored nations shall lift up and bless the less 
favored. Here also; “to whomsoever much is 
given of him will much be requored.” ‘The 
Nation of Israel was favored in order that it 
might be a light-bearer and a life-bringer to 
the other nations of the earth. 

And we believe that it is just as true that 
among modern nations, America is the favored 
one, the chosen of God, to blaze the way for, 
and to lift up the other nations of the world. 
America should ever show the other nations 
that national greatness is national goodness. 
So, in God’s great world plan of Providence, 
can America work out her true destiny. 

From general we pass to special Provi- 
dence, or Providence as it concerns the in- 
dividual. Here our interest grows. We come 
to self-interest. “he question for every one 
now is: Does God know, notice, and care for 
mer Is my life, are my ways, directed by 
Hime From the multitude of Scripture pas- 
sages we select a few to show that from the 
cradle to the grave our God watches over us. 
To every one who sincerely accepts His Word, 
He says, “Yea, I have loved thee with an 
everlasting love, therefore with loving kind- 
ness have I drawn thee.” Job. 10. 8, “Thy 


eS 


GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 97 


hands have framed me and fashioned me.” 
Jer. 1. 5, “Before thou camest forth out of 
the womb I sanctified thee.” Prov. 20. 24, 
‘A man’s goings are of Jehovah. How then 
can man understand His way?” James 4. 13- 
15. “Come now, ye that say, To-day or to- 
morrow we will go into this city, and spend 
a year there, and trade and get gain; whereas 
ye know not what shall be on the morrow .. . 
Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall 
both live, and do this or that.” Psalm 37. 23, 
‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the 
Lord.” Yes, God knows me. He loves me. 
The very hairs of my head are all numbered. 
If He so clothes the grass of the field, will 
He not much more clothe me? And when 
danger threatens, I read Psalms 23 and 91, 


' and recall Isaiah 43. 2, “When thou passest 


through the waters, I will be with thee; and 
through the rivers, they shall not overflow 
thee; when thou walkest through the fire, 
thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the 
flame kindle upon thee.” I read Mt. 6. 19-34 
and Romans 8. 31-39. Yes, there is a special 
Providence, and I am counted in. As I 
learned above, He uses His angels to protect 
and serve me. 

I recall what I learned above about the 


Luth, Fundamentals. 7, 


98 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


nature, being, and attributes of God. This 
God is my God. He can do for me whatso- 
ever He will. He can work miracles. He 
did work them, and He does work them. 
They are not contrary to, but above, nature. 
Nature is not above God, but God is above 
nature. From man’s viewpoint, God Him- 
self, His existence, nature, and being, is the 
miracle of miracles. When God was mani- 
fested in the flesh, the miracle of miracles was 
manifested. If I believe in God, in His mani- 
festation of Himself in Christ, in His inspir- 
ing prophets and apostles who write of Him, 
then I believe in miracles. It would be the 
height of absurdity to believe in God and not 
believe in miracles. 

To the God that I believe in I can pray. 
My God can and does, in His own way and 
on His own conditions, answer prayer. Every 
true believer knows by experience that God 
has answered his prayers. We know that He 
heareth us. 

Yes, I can sing: “I’m a miracle of grace.” 


“T that was all defiled by sin, 

An outcast from my God: 

I that had crucified the Son 

And trampled on His blood; 

What strange, perplexing grace is this 
That such a soul finds room! 

My Saviour takes me by the hand 
And kindly bids me come.” 


GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 99 


This is miracle. ‘This is answer to prayer. 

We cannot pass by the relation of fore- 
knowledge and predestination to Providence. 
Here many earnest souls have found perplex- 
ity. Many have been plunged into doubt. 

We cannot in this place enter into an ab- 
stract, dogmatic discussion of this deep and 
perplexing problem. Scientific Dogmatics 
often darkens counsel with words. We are 
writing for the common man. As stated above, 
we cannot and do not expect to understand, 
measure, or judge the whole mind of God. 
We do not and cannot expect by searching 
to find out the Almighty to perfection. 
Enough has been revealed to satisfy a renewed 
and sanctified mind and heart. Enough to 
direct a sanctified will. We neither want, 
nor do we profess, a knowledge that is wise 
above what is written; such knowledge puff- 
eth up. 

It is helpful always to remember that there 
is a real difference between foreknowing and 
foreordaining. Foreknowledge does not bind 
or coerce. Foreordination does. It belongs 
to the very nature of God to foreknow all. 
But what to us would be future, to God is 
present. With God there is neither past nor 
future. All is the eternal present. We speak 


100 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


after the fashion of man when we say that 
God foresaw all the future. But this cannot 
mean that God willed and foreordained all 
that He knew would take place. He knew 
that evil would come. He knew that sin with 
all its untold and untellable consequences 
would take place. But to say that He willed 
or foreordained all this would be to deny His 
holiness and goodness. On the other hand, 
when God foresaw all the good He also willed 
and foreordained it. In this His knowledge 
and will were in harmony. In this sense He 
predestined the good but not the evil. Even 
in thought we dare not admit that evil or sin 
had its origin in the mind and will of God. 
The problem of the existence of moral evil 
we simply cannot understand. ‘To do so we 
should have to be as infinitely wise as God 
is wise. ‘Here we know in part and we pro- 
phesy (or teach) in part; when that which is 
perfect is come, then, (and not till then), shall 
that which is in part (or imperfect), be done 
away.” We do know that God hates sin and 
therefore could not will to create sin. Let 
this suffice. Let us humbly believe and adore. 
Sin and evil came from the outside. Sin 
originated in a creature. As we have seen, 
the devil brought it into heaven. Then he in- 


GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE IO! 


troduced it into the human race when the 
race was yet in Adam’s loins. Of this, more 
hereafter. 

God has done all that He consistently could 
do to save man from sin and its baleful con- 
sequences. ‘This we shall see more clearly 
when we study Redemption. 

We cannot well leave this topic, however, 
without a brief glance at the related doctrine 
of God’s election of Grace. In this also we 
must still take for granted and anticipate 
teachings that belong to, and must be dis- 
cussed more fully when we take up the great 
subject of Redemption. In touching on it 
here as related to God’s Providence, we postu- 
late and emphasize our firm conviction that ; 


/ salvation is all of Grace. Every one who ever | 
| was, or ever will be, saved will attribute the | 


beginning, the progress, and the completion | 


' of his salvation to the free and unmerited | ui: 
Grace of his merciful God. On this funda-\<— 


mental point, all sound and consistent Luther- 
an theologians agree. | 
With this basis ever in mind we look at tHe 
doctrine of election. 
That there is a doctrine of election in the 
New Testament cannot be denied. To cut 
out every reference to this subject in the New 


102 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Testament would mean to blot out much of 
what is most precious, most helpful, and most 
comforting in the whole Bible. Election is in 
the Bible. The New Testament is full of it. 
God has put it there. What does it meanr 
What all does it include? We survey the suc- 
cessive steps. 

We believe, teach, and confess: 

1. That God loved and loves every human 
soul. : 

2. That God provided a Redeemer, who 
purchased salvation for every soul. 

3. That God sent His Holy Spirit into the 
world to offer the purchased salvation to all. 

4. That the Holy Spirit offers, and ap- 
plies this salvation through the Means that 
God Himself has ordained for this end. 

5. That these Means are the Word of God 
and the two Sacraments of Christ, Baptism 
and the Lord’s Supper. 

6. That man has in himself the melan- 
choly power to refuse the Means, to wilfully 
absent himself from them and to wilfully and 
persistently resist their divine power, when 
their influence is brought to bear upon him. 

7. ‘That when man thus wilfully and per- 
sistently neglects or resists these Means, he 


GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 103 


thereby puts himself into the class of the non- 
elect 

8. That man has the power to go where 
the Means are dispensed and offered, and to 
diligently and prayerfully use them; that by 
so doing he is doing what he can do and what 
God wants him to do toward his own salvation. 

9. ‘That when he does this, then, he does 
not renew himself, but the Holy Spirit, 
through the Means of Grace, renews and 
sanctifies him. 

10. That when thus renewed and in pro- 
cess of sanctification, he is one of God’s elect 
and saved ones. It is all of free Grace. 

This we believe is the helpful and comfort- 
ing New Testament teaching on election. It 
will be better understood and more deeply 
appreciated when we study man’s Redemp- 
tion and Renewal. 

Before we close our brief and cursory study 
of God’s work in Providence we need to note 
briefly the afflictions and sufferings that come 
so often and so perplexingly upon God’s chil- 
dren. They certainly do come. They certain- 
ly do sorely vex the very saints of God. In- 
spired and uninspired men have written their 
Theodicies. A Theodicy is an attempted jus- 
tification of God’s dealings with men when 


104 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


He allows them to suffer so sorely. The Book 
of Job is a wonderful, inspired Theodicy. 
Psalm 73 is a shorter one. Psalm 34 is help- 
ful. The latter half of Romans 8, is a tri- 
umphant Theodicy. In Hebrews 12. 1-13 
we have an instructive and a comforting The- 
odicy. Here we are so gently reminded that 
in God’s sight we are but shortsighted chil- 
- dren, and that even when we don’t understand 
we need corrective chastening. 

This precious passage will help us to ap- 
preciate the many other passages so rich in 
heavenly comfort. 

We must also bear in mind that we bring 
many afflictions upon ourselves by our sins. 
We then reap what we ourselves have sown. 
Such self-incurred suffering we cannot and 
dare not attribute to the mysterious providence 
of God. We brought it upon ourselves. Let 
us not blame it on God. 

But there are losses and crosses that come 
directly or indirectly from the loving heart 
and hand of God. These are disciplinary. 
They belong to the “all things” that God 
makes to work together for our good. They 
are a loving Father’s chastenings. They are 
intended for our profit. 

A widowed father had an only child —a 


GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 105 


precious little daughter. She was stricken 
with a serious malady. Her life trembled in 
the balance. The physician was entreated to 
spare no pains or cost to save the sufferer. 
He shook his head. He said there might be 
one drastic, last resort. He hesitated to tell 
it to the bowed and broken father. The father 
demanded to know. The doctor said: Every 
fifteen minutes, for twelve hours, you must 
immerse her in a tub of ice water. It may 
save her, it may not. 

The father plunged her in. She shivered 
and whimpered. He did it again and then 
again, she clung to him, she begged most 
piteously, “Papa, don’t do it again.” He 
steeled himself. He shivered and suffered a 
thousand times more than the child. He kept 
on. Over night his hair grew snowy white. 
Before dawn the fever broke. Perspiration 
came. The child was saved. Oh, the love 
that drove that father to so afflict that child! 

Our heavenly Father does not suffer in mak- 
ing us suffer. He afflicts but not willingly. 
He chastens out of love. Let us trust Him. 





PART II 








CHAPTER VI 
Sin 

EATHEN, without a missionary, without a 
Bible, know that there must be some 
kind of a god or gods. ‘They are conscious 
that for some reason their gods or higher pow- 
ers are not pleased with them. There is some- 
thing in them that the gods don’t like. This 
is an unwritten revelation in their nature. 
Their conscience bears witness that there is 
something wrong with themselves. They are 
not what they ought to be. There is some bad 
element in them that makes their gods angry. 
This consciousness of indwelling badness 
keeps out peace and joy. Heathen are not 
happy. There is a sad cast of countenance 
on all heathen peoples. The deep, settled, 
melancholy look on their faces betrays an in- 
ner want, an inner weight, an inner pain even 
when they laugh. Their laugh is not hearty, 

free and ringing, like that of a Christian. 


109 


110 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


There is a minor key in all their music. 
Whether they try to sing or play there is a 
plaintive undertone. It is the wail of an 
aching heart, the outcrying and up-yearning 
for a paradise lost, the homesickness for a lost 
home. 

Luthardt in Lecture VII of his Fundamen- 
tal Truths of Christianity sets fort the signi- 
ficant fact that in all the ancient, ethnic lt- 
eratures there is this undertone of sadness, this 
homesickness for a lost home. Everywhere 
there are dim, deep-seated traditions of a gol- 
den age, a happy home, a blessed life in the 
beginnings of the race. Reminiscences and 
longings are blended through the testimonies 
of the ages. The story of humanity, the laying 
bare of the open heart of humanity, is all one 
continuous sad tale, the never ceasing wail, 
iterating and reiterating the tragic fact that 
there is something desperately wrong, clam- 
oring out the eternal quest and question: Who 
will show us any good? 

And what of the quest and the test of to- 
day? Who can adequately describe the un- 
rest, the wild rush for external diversion, 
amusement, excitement? Why is the mass 
of our young people so restless and discon- 
tented unless there is a nightly date for a show, 


SIN III 


a feast, a bridge-party, a dance, a joy-ride? 
Why is a quiet evening at home, with cultured 
companions, with church papers, good, pure, 
uplifting books, and the old Bible, now so 
generally counted a borer Why the wide- 
spread distaste for an evening at churchr 
What’s wrong with the world? What ails 
the human heart? What possesses our young 
peopler Is there no cure for these ailments? 
Is there no balm in Gilead; no physician 
there? 

Remedies have been and are being offered. 
The proffered remedies promise satisfaction. 
Restless, roving, running humans are told that 
pleasures will gratify and satisfy. ‘They fail. 
Too often they leave the aching head and end 
in the breaking heart. The discontented ones 
are told that riches, honor, position, power 
will solace the ills. These also fail and leave 
behind a wreckage of disappointment and de- 
spair. 

The seeker after satisfaction is often told 
that he must look higher and deeper. World- 
ly wisdom, philosophy, culture — these are 
the curealls for him. Again there is illusion, 
there is disappointment. The aching void 
remains. ‘The deeper longings and yearnings 
still possess the soul. 


112 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


The remedies fail because the disease has 
not been rightly diagnosed. Worldly wisdom 
cannot do this. God alone can do it. He 
made the world. He knows what is wrong 
with it. He made man. He knows what 
ails humanity. He tells us in the old Book. 
It shows us, from its first pages to its last, 
that the one all-conditioning fundamental ail- 
ment of humanity is 


Sin. 

Sin makes every man sinful. Sin makes 
the whole man sinful. Sin makes the flesh 
lustful, makes the heart impure, makes the 
mind unclear, makes the will perverse. Sin 
is everything that is out of harmony with 
God’s will. Sin alienates from God; is ab- 
horrent to Him. Sin makes man conscious 
of guilt. Sin brings man all that restlessness 
and unhappiness depicted above. Sin is the 
great tragic fact in humanity. Ignoring it 
will not obliterate it. Denying it will not do 
away withit. Itis here. It rankles in every 
bosom. It worketh hitherto in every heart. 
It manifests itself in every life. It meets us 
at every turn. It glares at us in the headlines 
of our daily paper. It is the great tragedy 
of the world. 


SIN 113 


W hence ts sin? 


We have seen that it cannot by any possi- 
bility be from God. We have seen that when 
God made His first intelligent personal crea- 
tures He endowed them with a rational mind 
and a free will. We have seen that He has 
made it part of His plan that such creatures 
should undergo a testing and so be developed, 
strengthened, and perfected in their moral 
nature. We have seen that in some way, in- 
scrutable to our finite minds, evil entered into 
one of the chiefs of the angels and corrupted 
him;* that when he had fallen he tempted 
and corrupted other angels. Sin started in 
heaven, but was banished from there. 

The first fallen angel, the devil, brought 
sin into our world. When the human race 
was all in Adam, the devil tempted him and 
made him fall. 

We look again into the sad, old, unvar- 
nished, artless, short, simple story of human- 
ity’s fall into sin. The natural man does not 
like this story. 

From the beginning it has been ridiculed, 
denied, perverted, misconstrued, and misun- 


*Read or re-read the author’s “What’s Wrong with the 
World.” 


Luth, Fundamentals. 8, 


114 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


derstood. But after all that has been said, 
written, speculated, and invented, the story is 
the only explanation that explains. It is the 
only real and full answer to the questions, 
What’s wrong with human nature? What’s 
wrong with the world? ‘The Bible story re- 
quires candid, careful examination. It is often 
flippantly and irreverently referred to as the 
taking and eating of a forbidden apple. The 
forbidding of an apple is held forth as an act 
ridiculous in itself, and its penalty as utterly 
unworthy of God. The taking and eating is 
held up as so natural, and so inconsequential 
that it is at its worst but a trifling thing. Such 
has ever been the superficial and flippant way 
of Rationalism and unbelief. Let us look 
more closely into the story of the Temptation 
and Fall. 

We note that God had made and fitted out 
a most delightful place of habitation for man. 
Read again Genesis 2. 8-15. It was neither 
a wild forest nor a treeless prairie. It was a 
garden. It was well watered by three rivers. 
Under its soil were gold and precious stones. 
The garden was planted and prepared for 
man’s enjoyment. Every tree that was pleas- 
ant to the eye and good for food was there. 


SLING He 115 


God was lavish in His loving kindness to His 


crowning creature. 
God was generous in His permissions. Man 


was told that he might eat of every tree save 
one. The prohibition of one was for man’s 
testing and developing. 

Into this garden comes the _ tempter. 
Note his wiles. He approaches the weaker 
vessel. He engages her in conversation. 
He withdraws her attention from all the 
permitted trees. He focuses her attention 
on the one forbidden tree. She lingers, she 
listens, she looks, she contemplates, she ad- 
mires, she realizes that the tree is good for 
food, that it is pleasant to the eyes, that it is 
to be desired to make one wise. The devil 
is implanting the lust of the flesh, the lust 
of the eye, and the pride of life. Sin is root- 
ing as she lingers to listen further. 

The devil awakens a suspicion that God is 
not good. ‘Yea, hath God said that ye shall 
not eat of every tree?” Is God restricting 
your liberty? Suspicion is started. Suspicion 
starts doubt. Doubt starts unbelief. Un- 
belief is the root of all sin. 

The devil has Eve prepared for the second 
fatal step: If God is not good, then perhaps 
His Word is not true. To be very frank, it 


tee 


i16 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


is not true. Hear his boldness, ‘Ye shall not 
surely die.” Oh, this liar from the begin- 
ning! This originator of unbelief. This first 
negative critic of God’s Word. 

He has implanted unbelief. He has Eve 
ready for the last bold step. Why should she 
obey a God who is not good and who is not 
true? Break His bands asunder! Cut loose 
from Him! Disobey! So you will be free. 
You will be wise! 

Eve believed. the devil rather than God. 
She obeyed the devil and disobeyed God. She 
had broken with God. The virus of unbelief 
and disobedience had entered her soul. She 
at once became devilish. Having herself 
broken away from God and become a rebel, 
she wanted Adam to become like herself and 
also break away from God. Imitating the 
devil, she tempted Adam. As the devil had 
made her fall, so she makes Adam fall. Thus 
sin at once propagated itself. So sin has ever 
done. So it does to-day. Herein is its devil- 
ishness. 

What a change, what a catastrophe in Para- 
dise! Where happy Adam and Eve had 
awaited and walked and talked with God in 
the garden, they now flee, hide themselves, 
and cower under the bushes. Where they had 


SIN’ 117 


walked, erect and glad, they are now ashamed. 
Hiding and crouching and covered with fig 
leaves, terror in their souls and trembling in 
limb, they want to creep away from God. 

Sin had come in, sin was seething and burn- 
ing in their souls. They were the race. They 
were humanity. Diseased, defiled, con- 
demned, appalled! 

This is the short story of the genesis and 
growth of Sin. Whata psychology! Is there 
anything approaching it in other ancient lore? 
Compare the heathen mythologies! Could 
unaided man have invented a story that ex- 
plains so much, that answers so many other- 
wise unanswerable questions, that throws such 
a lurid light inward upon the nature of man’s 
soul and forward upon human history? Here 
is an ancient philosophy, an explanation of 
things. Did human ingenuity ever propose a 
better one? No, no, this explanation stands 
alone. It explains. It is God’s explanation 
of the riddle of humanity. It satisfies sancti- 
fied reason. 

Now I know whence sin is! Now I know 
why the race is sinful! The race was in 
Adam’s loins. When Adam fell the race fell. 


Now I know that sin is not all or not only 
in and of the flesh. Adam and Eve had flesh 
before they had sin. Matter in itself is not 


118 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


evil. Eve’s intellect was appealed to. Eve’s 
will was perverted. Eve’s flesh became full 
of evil lust. Now I know that Paul’s dark 
and tragic picture in Romans VII is true, even 
of the regenerate. Yes of me. Oh, how 
frightfully true of the unregenerate who have 
crushed out all their better longings and 
aspirations! I know whence and what sin is. 
I know what’s wrong with the world. Paul 
has it all in Romans v. God’s witness to me 
has become a witness in me. 

I know that there is original Sin. There 
is a native depravity which I brought into 
the world with myself. “I was shapen in in- 
iquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” 
I know that we are all by nature, i. e. by our 
natural birth, “children of wrath,” “flesh born 
of the flesh.” From beginning to end my 
Bible teaches and takes for granted the sad 
fact of original sin. 

Human reason may clamor against this un- 
welcome teaching. Human pride may rebel 
against its humiliation. A shallow optimism 
may deride it. Liberalists may shriek out 
their assertions that such a belief belongs to 
the Dark Ages, that it is unworthy of the 
twentieth century, that it ought not once to 
be named among enlightened Americans. 


SIN 119 


Truth is still truth. Sinful human nature 
may wince under it. Neither reason, nor 
pride, nor unbelief in any form can wipe out 
a fact. They cannot shriek a fact out of ex- 
istence. Facts are still fundamental. 

That from birth on there is an evil bias, 
a tendency toward, and a preference for, the 
bad is patent to every open and unbiased 
mind. Without a teacher the child learns the 
bad. To learn the good, to love what God 
loves, requires constant teaching, training, 
watching, warning, and luring. Why? De- 
pravity is native. 

The wages of sin is death. Dying, thou 
shalt die. All pain, all suffering is a preven- 
lent dying and as such a wage, a result of sin. 
Where there is no sin there can be neither 
sickness nor death. Innocent angels neither 
suffer nor die. Neither do the spirits of just 
men made perfect. In the New Jersusalem 
there is no sin. There “the inhabitant shall 
not say, I am sick.” ‘There shall be neither 
sorrow, nor crying, nor death.” No sin there. 
No baby would ever get sick or die if it were 
sinless. Facts are stubborn things.* 

The acceptance of the full, sad teaching 
of the Bible on Sin is fundamental. 


*Read chapters I and II of “Way of Salvation in the Lu- 
theran Church.” 


« ea 


ae se 
Pac Bh a 


i 


Te 





Pa es het 
REDEMPTION 





CHAPTER VII 
The Redeemer 


HE terrible tragedy had taken place. 

The progenitors of the human race were 
fallen creatures. In intellect, in will, in flesh, 
they had broken with God. Their physical, 
mental, and moral nature had become corrupt. 
The race to be was as yet in them. We were 
in Adam. Therefore, 


“Tn Adam’s fall 
We sinned all.” 


At once Adam and Eve were conscious of 
the tragic change. Heretofore they had been 
the happy companions of God. God had 
walked with them and talked with them in 
the garden. Now all is changed. In con- 
scious guilt they flee. They hide under the 
bushes. They make themselves aprons of fig- 
leaves. They do not want to see God. They 


123 


124 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


do not want God to see them. Sinful, cor- 
rupt, guilty, they can no longer abide His 
pure presence. ‘They are lost. 

Left to themselves they would have fallen 
deeper and ever deeper. They would have 
wandered farther and ever farther. As the 
first prodigals they would have gone down 
among the swine. 

They neither contemplated nor took a single 
step back toward God. But God had com- 
passion. His great loving heart yearned for 
His lost children. He pitied them. He 
sought them. He called them. He found 
them. He showed them that the sin and guilt 
were all their own. He brought them to re- 
pentance and then—oh, blessed fact!—in the 
seed of the woman He promised them a Re- 
deemer. 

From that time forward began that long 
course of preparation. God began to prepare 
a fallen race for redemption. Outside of 
Eden God began to school and discipline the 
race. The pedagogy of God runs through 
the Old Testament. 

As noted in the Introduction, outside the 
gates of God’s garden the race divided. One 
part elected to follow the faith of Abel. The 
other part elected to walk in “the way of 


THE REDEEMER 125 


Cain.” Later on came the great division be- 
tween Judaism and Heathenism. The latter 
carried forth some traditions from the cradle 
of the race. As we have seen, they never could 
altogether forget four great basic truths. 
Throughout their age-long, dreary wander- 
ings, God was disciplining the heathen. He 
was teaching them two great essential lessons; 
First, that with all its nature worship, with / 
all its culture in art, in philosophy, in civiliza-/ 
tion, in statecraft, and in state religion, hu-) 
manity cannot redeem itself from corruption 
and guilt, and cannot make a moral and happy 
world. Second, that, despairing of self-sal-' 
vation, humanity must look for redemption 
from above. 

Judaism also had to learn needed lessons: 
First, that they could not save themselves by 
virtue of inherent superiority, nor by the 
mere fact that God had highly favored them 
and had given them a written Revelation. 
The fact that they were Abraham’s seed 
would not in itself save them. Not even the 
divine law nor their own efforts after an ex- 
ternal and artificial obedience could save 
them. The law could only be their pedagogue 
to show them their sin and to drive them to 
a prophesied, God-given Redeemer. 


126 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


This was God’s plan. This is His covenant. 
Unaided human wisdom could never have de- 
vised it. Reason may find fault and criticise. 
Reason cannot measure the mind of God. A 
sanctified reason, a reason enlightened and re- 
newed by the Holy Ghost, studies, admires, 
and adores the manifold wisdom of God. The 
individual Christian searches and sees and 
says: Yes, this fits me; this saves me; this satis- 
fies me. What I cannot comprehend I leave 
to His inscrutable wisdom. The judge of all 
the earth has done right. So from Genesis 
3. 15 to John 3. 16 the great scheme of God 
unfolds. In the fulness of time the seed of the 
woman is revealed as the only begotten Son of 
God. It was love that promised the seed to 
ruined man. It was love that prepared 
the heathen world to see its need of redemp- 
tion. It was love that prepared redemption 
through the Jewish world. It was love that 
provided a Redeemer. It was love that led 
Him to come gladly. 

The Redeemer had no earthly father. He 
was born of a virgin mother. Joseph was His 
fosterfather. He adopted the son of his be- 
trothed virgin. Joseph thus became the legal 
father of Jesus. In law Joseph had the rights 
and responsibilities of a father. The inspired 


THE REDEEMER 127 


story tells us how nobly he carried his self-as- 
sumed responsibilities. 

Those who deny Revelation, inspiration, 
and miracle have vehemently attacked the 
teaching of the virgin birth. To a true 
Christian who has experienced the Grace that 
comes through inspired Revelation, who 
knows himself to be a miracle, a miracle of 
Grace, there is no difficulty in the miracle of 


~..the virgin birth. He asks only what is written. 


He~knows that Isaiah prophesied, (7. 14) 
“Behold, @ virgin shall conceive, and bear a 
son.” He knows that an angel promised a 
Son to Mary while she was yet a virgin. Luke 
1. 35, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee; therefore also that holy thing 
which shall be born of thee shall be called the 
Son of God.” And Matthew 1. 18 says that 
after His mother Mary was espoused to Jo- 
seph, before they came together, “she was 
found with child of the Holy Spirit.” And so 
the Word became flesh. He was born of a 
woman, born under the law. So the Chris- 
tian reverently confesses: I believe in Jesus 
Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
born of the virgin Mary. 

How beautifully all this fits into the whole 


128 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


New Testament portrayal of Christ. He is 
the miracle of miracles. Why shouldn’t His 
conception and birth be a miracle? What a 
fitting start it is for that exceptional earthly 
career! What natural mind could have con- 
ceived it? This altogether unique, this other- 
worldly, earthly beginning prepares us for all 
that is to follow. We know in advance that 
we are to have a God-man for a Saviour, a 
Saviour who can save—save to the uttermost. 
There is a heavenly naturalness in the super- 
natural. It prepares for, and fits into, the 
precious Christmas story. It fits the first 
Christmas sermon, preached by an angel. It 
fits the first Christmas anthem, sung by an 
angel choir. It fits our minds and hearts into 
the Christmas spirit. It tinges and tones the 
whole year with Christmas. It fits the short, 
simple, straightforward story of the infancy 
of the Holy Child. 

The Emperor on the world’s throne had to 
help make Micah’s prophecy come true. The 
shepherds visited the manger crib. They saw 
the little Lord Jesus. ‘They became lay- 
preachers and “made known abroad the say- 
ing which was told them concerning this 
child.” This was preaching the good tidings. 
He who ‘was made of a woman, made under 


THE REDEEMER 129 


the law,” was circumcised on the eighth day 
according to the law. He was purified in the 
temple on the fortieth day according to the 
law. Simeon took the little Lord Christ in 
his arms and indited our Nunc Dimittis. 
came coming into the temple at that instant, 
“gave thanks, and spake of Him to all feed 
that looked fa redemption in Jerusalem.” A 
holy woman preached the glad tidings without 
leaving a good woman’s sphere. This daugh- 
ter of God prophesied. Wise men from the 
heathen Orient, guided by God’s special star 
and directed by hostile students of the 
prophets, came and worshiped and offered 
costly gifts. An angel directed the flight in- 
to Egypt, and so saved the child from the 
murderous intent of Herod. Then came the 
quiet years in Nazareth where “the child 
grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with 
wisdom; and the grace of God was upon 
Him.” What a story! What a childhood! 
What a child! It was “the Holy Child Je- 
sus.’ Who could have invented the story? 
Who would have restrained himself not to 
tell more? 
Between the return to Nazareth and the 
beginning of the public ministry there lie 
nearly thirty silent years. Once only is the 


Luth, Fundamentals. 9, 


130 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


curtain lifted. We get one short glimpse at 
the twelve year old boy in the temple. What 
a glimpse! How meaningful! A volume of 
information in the short story and the signifi- 
cant summary of the following eighteen years: 
‘Fle went down with them and came to Naza- 
reth, and was subject unto them... And Je- 
sus increased in wisdom and stature, and in 
favor with God and man.” He is a Son of 
the Law, He is a carpenter. That is all. It 
is enough. 

It does not fall into our present purpose to 
delineate the three years of His public min- 
istry. That story is full. Its study has en- 
gaged the greatest minds in the world. They 
are talking about it in heaven. You and JI, 
dear reader, expect to spend an eternity with 
the angels looking into these things which hu- 
man eye cannot all see, nor ear hear, nor heart 
conceive. What we want to know as far as 
a human being can know, what we want to 
be assured of is this: Who is this Son of 
Manre We want to be ready to give an answer 
—an answer that will at least satisfy ourselves 
—to the question of all questions, ‘“‘What think 
ye of Christ?” No man can claim to be well- 
informed, to be an intelligent man, and yet 
be ignorant of the life, character, and mission 


THE REDEEMER 131 


of Jesus Christ. We want to learn, we want 
to know, all that we can of the person, the 
nature, the character, the meaning, the mission 
of Christ. All sorts of deep, metaphysical, 
and speculative answers have been given. 
What is your answerer What is miner 

We first ask: What claims does Jesus 
make for Himself? 

We can only name some of His most unique 
and striking claims. Limitations of space for- 
bid our quoting all the proof passages. Most 
of them are well known. 

In a quiet, unboastful, modest way Jesus 
claims to be far above the great men of His 
nation—in a class by Himself. With the 
Father “before the world was.” “Before 
Abraham.” “David’s Lord.” “Greater than 
Solomon.” “Greater than Jonah.” He is 
“from above.” ‘Came down from heaven.” 
“Came forth from the Father,” “from God.” 
He claims to be “the Light of the world;” 
“the Life of the world;” “the Resurrection 
and the Life;” “the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life.” He claims that He can give rest to all 
the weary and heavy laden. He claims to for- 
give sin, to save. He desires that all men 
“honor Him as they honor the Father.” He 
claims that no man can come to the Father 


132 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


but by Him. That all power is given Him 
in heaven and in earth. That He will give 
His life “a ransom for many.” That He will 
come again in glory and all the angels with 
Him. 

Will the skeptic, the rationalist, the Uni- 
tarian, the Eddyite, give us a clear, unequivo- 
cal answer to these plain questions: Did any 
mere man ever make such claims? What 
would they think of such aman? How would 
these claims sound from the lips of a mere 
man? 

We go further: Jesus claimed that He and 
the’ Father) aresone!: “Chat hle ris, inesthe 
Father and the Father in Him. That who- 
ever has seen Him has seen the Father. 

Still further: The enemies of Jesus under- 
stood Him as claiming equality with God. In 
John 10. 33 we read: ‘The Jews answered 
Him saying, For a good work we stone Thee 
not, but for blasphemy, and that thou being a 
man makest thyself God.” For blasphemy 
these Jews afterwards brought Jesus to trial. 
They put Him on the witness stand. They 
adjured Him, 1. e., they made Him take an 
oath, they made Him swear. The high priest 
said: “I adjure thee by the living God that 
thou tell us whether thou art Christ the Son 


THE REDEEMER 133 


of God.” Jesus answered: ‘Thou hast said,” 
1. €., it is as thou hast said. Then, on the 
witness stand, under oath, Jesus goes on: 
“Hereafter ye shall se the Son of man sitting 
on the right hand of Power and coming in 
the clouds of heaven.” ‘To their ears and by 
their law this was blasphemy, and for this they 
said, “He is guilty of death.” Had He been a 
mere man, then according to their law their 
verdict would have been just. 

Such were the claims of Jesus for Himself. 
Such were they understood to be by those who 
heard them. Under oath He answered the 
enemies that they had understood Him aright. 
He swore that He was the Christ, the Son of 
God, that He would sit on the right hand of 
power and would come again in the clouds of 
heaven. 

Now! Were His claims true, or were they 
false? One or the other they must be. He 
was either speaking, teaching, testifying, 
swearing to, truth or falsehood. If truth, then 
He was all that He claimed to be. Then we 
say with John: ‘The Word was God.” We 
say with Peter: “Thou art the Son of the 
living God.” We fall at His feet, we wor- 
ship, we adore, as we say with Thomas: “My 
Lord and my God.” 


134 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


But if His claims were not true? What 
then? Shall wesay it? Wemust. Then He 
would have been the greatest pretender, the 
worst impostor that ever lived. Say it who 
dare! 

Here we might rest our own claim for the 
essential Deity of Jesus Christ. But we desire 
to call the reader’s attention to a few more 
convincing proofs. 

Not only did Jesus Himself claim for Him- 
self essential Deity, but the whole New Tes- 
tament, its whole evangel, is based on, builded 
on, and pervaded by, the claim. Without the 
essential Deity of Christ there is neither life, 
nor attraction, nor power in the Gospel. 
There is no good tidings in it. It is degospel- 
ised. 

For those who accept the Bible as the re- 
vealed and inspired Word of God the old ar- 
guments or proofs forever settle the question. 
With those who have so far stifled their 
higher reason and the deepest yearnings of 
their better nature as to deny Revelation, 
miracle, and in fact the supernatural, we have 
here no argument. 

Note carefully these passages. Look up 
the parallel references. Furst as to the 
NAMES given to Jesus. Jer. 23.6. “This 


THE REDEEMER 135 


is his name whereby he shall be called: the 
Lord our Righteousness.” John 20. 28. 
Thomas said unto Him, “My Lord and my 
God.” Romans 9.5. “Whose are the fathers, 
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ 
came, who is over all, God blessed forever.” 
1 John 5. 20. “And we know that the Son of 
God is come, and hath given us an understand- 
ing, that we may know him that is true; and 
we are in Him that is true even in his Son 
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eter- 
nalehite:’ | 

Note, second, that He has the ATTRI- 
BUTES of God: 

He is Eternal. John 1.1. “In the begin- 
ning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God.” John 8. 58. 
“Before Abraham was, I am.” Heb. 13. 8. 
‘“Tesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and 
forever.” He is everywhere present. Matt. 
18.20. “Where two or three are gathered to- 
gether in my name, there am I in the midst 
of them.” Matt. 28.18. ‘All power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth.” He is all- 
knowing. John 2. 25. “He knew what was 
in man.” In John 21. 17 Peter says to Jesus: 
“Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest 
that I love Thee.” Col. 2.3. “In whom are 


136 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge.” The whole Gospel record shows that 
He had and ever manifested the attributes of 
goodness, mercy, righteousness, and holiness. 
All these are essential attributes of God. 

To Him are ascribed WORKS which God 
alone can do. John 1. 3. “AII things were 
made by him and without him was not any- 
thing made.” In Heb. 1. 3 He is said to be 
“upholding all things by the word of his 
power.” We know that He had power over 
nature. He turned water into wine, stilled 
the storm, drove shoals of fish into the net, 
multiplied loaves and fishes. He also healed 
all manner of diseases, cast out demons, and 
raised the dead. He could and did forgive 
sins. 

He receives divine WORSHIP. In Acts 
7.59, 60 we see Stephen praying to Him. In 
Acts 9. 14 Ananias says to the glorified Lord 
that believers “call on thy name.” Phil. 
2.10. “At the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth.’ Men may 
refuse to confess and worship Him here, and 
so make it impossible to worship Him in heay- 
en. But in hell they will bow the knee to 
Him. Also Heb. 1. 6 describes the worship 


THE REDEEMER 137 


in heaven. “And let all the angels of God 
worship Him.” But enough on this supreme 
fundamental. To get rid of the essential 
Deity, or Godhead, of Jesus would mean to 
get rid of the New Testament, or to make its 
words meaningless. 

We need not tarry to prove that Jesus is 
also true man. He is called man. He has 
soul and body, flesh and bone, hands and feet. 
He grew up asa boy. He ate and drank, and 
was weary and slept, and suffered and died. 

What a comforting truth this is. He had 
a real, a true human nature. He carried a 
real, human heart. He experienced all that 
really belongs to human nature. Sin does not 
belong to the substance or essence of human 
nature. Adam had a complete human nature 
before he had sin. Jesus Christ, the second 
Adam, had a complete human nature without 
sin. This human nature was glorified after 
He had finished His state of humiliation. He 
took His glorified humanity with Him to 
heaven. At the right hand of God a human 
heart beats for me. He can be, He is touched 
with the feeling of my infirmities. I can ap- 
proach Him. I can come bodily to His 
throne. He can and does feel for me. 

In the Person of Christ the two natures 


138 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


were intimately and mysteriously blended. In 
the one person the natures were in perfect har- 
mony with each other. There was commun- 
ion and intercommunion. There was a re- 
ciprocal communication of attributes and ac- 
tions. What one nature experienced and did 
was participated in by the other. The attri- 
butes of one nature were shared in by the 
other. The majesty of the divine nature was 
in a mysterious way communicated to the 
human. In all His heavenly and divine of- 
fices as our Prophet, our Priest, and our King 
both natures were active. All this is clearly 
shown in the passages already quoted and 
many more that might be quoted. 

This God-man, this “true God begotten of 
the Father from eternity and also true man 
born of the Virgin Mary” is the very and only 
kind of Saviour that could have redeemed 
me. Had he been God only, He could not 
have suffered and died for me. Had He been 
man alone, His suffering and dying could 
never have had value enough to pay for the 
sin and guilt of the human race. A mere 
man’s suffering and dying could never have 
been a sufficient atonement to satisfy eternal 
justice, to take the sting out of death, and to 
overcome hell and the devil. 


THE REDEEMER 139 


The God-man answers all and for all. He 
is the one Mediator between God and man. 
He is my advocate at the throne of grace. In 
Him alone is my salvation. The doctrine of 
the Person of the Redeemer is fundamental. 


CHAPTER VIII 


The Work of the Redeemer, or Redemption. 


Ma™ things in this chapter have been 
I anticipated, 1 need .togrecallathaten 
am by nature and by practiceasinner. I need 
to recall that sin inevitably brings suffering 
and death. Thisissin’s penalty. Left to my- 
self, my sin would assuredly bring upon me 
physical, spiritual and eternal death. Left 
to himself no man can by any means give a 
ransom for himself. If I am to be redeemed, 
bought back, ransomed, saved, it must be by 
another. And for this my Redeemer came. 
He came “‘to save His people from their sins,” 
“to seek and to save the lost,” to “give His 
life as a ransom,” to “save to the uttermost.” 


FHow-Did deer edesnmies 


As the oldest finished creed says: ‘‘Who 
for us men and for our salvation came down 
from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy 
Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made 
man.’”’ More than two centuries earlier the 


140 


REDEMPTION 141 


Holy Ghost had said through Paul, “He 
humbled himself and became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross.” In this 
state of voluntary self-humbling, which we 
call His state of humiliation, he remained un- 
til He said: “It is finished.” After that be- 
gan His state of exaltation in which He exists 
now and will exist world without end. 

His state of humiliation and all that goes 
with it He took upon Himself willingly and 
of His own accord. He was not coerced or 
compelled or driven. All those cheap, cur- 
rent objections against God, as if He had laid 
hold of His Son, bound Him and thrown 
Him upon the altar of suffering, like Abra- 
ham caught and bound and burned the ram, 
fall to the ground when Jesus says of giving 
up His life: “No man taketh it from me, but 
I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay 
it down, and I have power to take it again.” 
Again we read, Heb. 10. 7, “Then I said: Lo, 
I come, (in the volume of the book it is writ- 
ten of me) to do thy will, O God.” Love 
drove Him to want to humble Himself, to 
want to live that life of sacrifice and suffer- 
ing, and then to die for my salvation. 

In that state of humiliation He became my 
Prophet. The law demanded perfect obedi- 


142 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


ence in thought, word, and deed. Gal. 3. 10. 
“Cursed is every one who continueth not in 
all things that are written in the book of the 
law, to do them.” Jas. 2. 10. ‘Whosoever 
therefore shall keep the whole law, and yet of- 
fend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Who 
then can be saved? By the Law, no one. 
There is none righteous, no not one. No nat- 
ural son of Adam ever could, or ever did, 
keep the whole law in its own inner intent. 
Left to itself humanity was condemned. 
Then He, my Prophet, came. The law 
found nothing to condemn in Him. He was 
the maker and giver of the Law. He had a 
righteousness as far above the Law as heaven 
is above earth. But, voluntarily He was made 
under the Law. As a Prophet He taught it. 
He opened up its deep spiritual meaning. He 
showed what its demands are on the soul, the 
mind, the heart. He put Himself under that 
Law. He fulfilled it in its deepest demands. 
He owed nothing to the Law. But, after 
showing me its deeper, fuller meaning, He 
kept it in my place. He was my substitute. 
For me He worked out a righteousness of the 
Law. For me He worked out this active obe- 
dience. This perfect obedience He wanted 
to have set down to my account. His own 


REDEMPTION 143 


earned and acquired righteousness of the Law 
He wanted to have counted over to me. His 
legal perfection He wanted imputed to me. 
I could have no such righteousness of my own. 
But I could have His righteousness set down 
to my account as thoughit had been my own. 

But Redemption is not yet complete. There 
is another debt to be paid. Man had sinned. 
God’s nature abhorred sin. Sin must be pun- 
ished. God’s word was pledged. ‘There must 
be suffering for sin. God’s justice demanded 
an atonement. 

Therefore my Prophet becomes my Priest. 
He brings Himself as God’s lamb to the altar. 
He Himself becomes my substitute. In effect 
He says: Let me take the sinner’s place. Let 
me be the guilty one. Let the blows fall on 
me. All that the sinner deserves I will suffer. 

So real was this substitution that He who 
made Himself at the same time the Priest and 
the Sacrifice, faced, looked upon, and con- 
templated, all the sin of all the race of all the 
ages as His own sin. He gazed upon all the 
dark sins, all the vice, all the crime that ever 
had been committed by man, as if He had 
done it all. How the very thought, the very 
sight of all this foul array must have filled 


144 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


His pure soul with horror unspeakable! As 
my substitute He so looked upon my sin. 
Not only did He see it all as His own, but 
He felt the guilt of it all. The sin was His, 
the burden was His. The guilt was His. He 
felt as if He had committed it all; as if He 
must answer for it all; as if He deserved all 
the penalty for it all; as if He must suffer all 
that it all deserved. As the guilty one He 
must bear the awful load, He must drink the 
bitter cup, because He had made the sin His 
own. He made Himself the guilty one. 
Still further: While He was working out 
that vicarious Atonement He underwent all 
the punishment due for all the sin of all the 
race. In a sense His whole earthly life was 
vicarious. All that He suffered in all that 
life was vicarious. In anticipation also, as He 
knew the end from the beginning, He suffered 
Gethsemane and Calvary a thousand times 
over. And when it was all upon Him, He 
suffered the torments of the damned, and the 
pangs of hell took hold upon Him. The devil 
had tempted Him in the wilderness. He had 
left Him “for a season.” Now, on this the 
darkest night of the world Jesus says: ‘The 
prince of this world cometh and hath nothing 
inme.” Now He says to the devil’s imps and 


REDEMPTION 145 


implements: ‘This is your hour, and the 
power of darkness.” And so the fiends of Hell 
were let loose upon Him and shot their hellish 
darts into His soul. He was being “made a 
curse.” He was “made sin.” The Lord was 
laying ‘“‘on Him the iniquity of us all.” He 
was “bearing our sins in His own body.” Sin 
deserved Hell. He suffered Hell. As infi- 
nite God He could suffer in a comparatively 
short time what would take an eternity for 
man to suffer. What His suffering lacked in 
extensiveness it made up in_intensiveness. 
God was suffering. 

True, God, in Himself, cannot suffer or 
die. But while in Christ dwelt all the ful- 
ness of the Godhead bodily, Christ was not 
simply, purely, solely God. He was God- 
man. As we have seen, God had united Him- 
self with human nature in a mysterious, but 
real and intimate union. God, thus made 
man, could undergo, endure, suffer, and die. 
God ununited with human nature could 
not undergo all this. But our sacrifice, our 
vicarious Atonement is that of God united 
with man. The Man, Christ Jesus, suffered 
and died. ‘The God who was in Christ recon- 
ciling the world unto Himself suffered and 


died. Inareal sense with Watts we can sing: 
Luth, Fundamentals, 10. 


y 
; 
i 


146 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
“When God the mighty Maker died 


For man the creature’s sin.” 
With Luther we may sing: 


“O Grosse Noth! 
Gott selbst ist tot!” 
Oh awful dread! 
God’s self is dead! 


We can further sing: 


“Jesus paid it all; 
All the debt I owe.” 

And so all the other precious passion and 
pardon and peace hymns written by men who 
believed in, and had experienced, the pre- 
ciousness of the vicariousness of the Atone- 
ment of the God-man. 

_ The sainted Rev. Dr. Passavant of Pitts- 
burg once told the writer how he had been 
called in to see a dying stranger. He found 
an old man with a patriarchal beard on his 
dying bed. After a kindly greeting Dr. Pas- 
savant asked the man what his hopes were for 
the next world. The old man closed his eyes, 
folded his hands across his breast, and slowly 


repeated that next to inspired gem of Evan- 
‘gelical truth, Luther’s Explanation of the sec- 
‘ond Article of the Apostle’s Creed, as he had 


learned it over three score years ago in the 
confirmation class. Here it is: 


REDEMPTION 147 


“IT believe that Jesus Christ, true God, be- 
gotten of the Father from eternity, and also 
true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my 
Lord; who has redeemed me, a lost and con- 
demned creature, secured and delivered me 
from all sins, from death and from the power 
of the devil, not with silver and gold, but 
with His holy and precious blood and with 
His innocent sufferings and death; in order 
that I might be His own, live under Him in 
His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting 
righteousness, innocence, and _ blessedness; 
even as He is risen from the dead and lives 
and reigns to all eternity. This is most cer- 
tainly true.” 

Dr. Passavant said that in his ministry of 
fifty years he had not seen a more beautiful 
deathbed nor heard a more blessed dying tes- 
timony. 

May it be yours and mine. 

It expresses a fund of fundamental truth. 
To be fundamental and saving for me, it must 
be more than a precious treasury of memory. 
It must be a living heart experience. ? 


Jesus Is Also My King. 


Because Jesus has redeemed me, therefore 


148 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


I.can.be Hist: -Hercanvbe my King? cf ‘can 
live under Him in His Kingdom. 

Because He finished His work of Redemp- 
tion, He can send His Holy Spirit to renew 
me and make me a fit subject for His King- 
dom of grace. 

In this blessed Kingdom He exercises over 
me His rule of love. He guides me, directs 
me, protects me to the end. 

As my King He will come again and take 
me out of His Kingdom of Grace into His 
Kingdom of glory. All this will become more 
clear as I study the application and appro- 
priation of the work of Redemption and the 


Last Things. 


osha BOY 
THE APPLICATION AND 


APPROPRIADILON. OF 
REDEMPTION 









ae G LL? Aha 


‘5. a 





; 
a 
» 
‘s 
: % 
; 
4 
: 
a 
v 
¥ 
ae | 
5 ai 


CHAPTER IX 
The Holy Spirit, His Person and Work 


HE God-man had finished His Work. 
He had purchased a full and free salva- 
tion for guilty and condemned humanity. He 
had paid in full the sinner’s penalty. He had 
paid in full all the demands of God’s holy 
law, which is the expression of God’s holy 
will. He had satisfied in full all the demands 
of God’s justice. The obstacles that separated 
man from God had now been removed. The 
way back to favor with God was again open. 
God could now be just and yet justify the sin- 
ner. A vicarious Atonement had been ren- 
dered. A perfect salvation had been pur- 
chased. The Redeemer could say of His 
great work, and did say, “It is finished.” 
But Atonement was not all that was needed 


151 


152 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


for man’s salvation. No man ever could be, 
no man ever was, saved without the Atone- 
ment. And yet the Atonement alone never did 
and never could save man. A further work of 
God was needed. Man was still unsaved, still 
sinful, still guilty and condemned. He needed 
to take, to appropriate to himself, the pur- 
chased salvation. Man had to be made fit for 
salvation, fit for fellowship with God, fit for 
heaven. Man’s sinful nature needed to be 
changed, to be made over, before he could be 
made a partaker of the salvation purchased 
for him. The work for man was finished. A 
work in man was yet to be done. Man could 
not do this for himself. He could not make 
himself over. He could not change his na- 
ture. He could not re-create himself. He 
could not make himself a new creature. 
Sooner might the Ethiopian change his skin, 
or the leopard his spots, than that man might 
change his own nature. Jesus says: ‘‘With- 
out me ye can do nothing.” The carnal mind, 
1. e. the mind of the natural, unrenewed man, 
is “enmity against God.” 1 Cor. 2.14. “The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto 
him; neither can he know them, because they 
are spiritually discerned.” By nature all are 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 153 


“dead in trespasses and in sins.” ‘The dead 
cannot make themselves alive. A new work 
of God is needed, a creative work in man. To 
renew man is the special work of the Holy 
Ghost. 

Who is the Holy Ghost? Is He a mere im- 
personal influence? Is He merely a divine 
power that goes out from Godr Are His 
names and titles mere figures of speech, ideas 
personified? So many rationalistic writers 
and teachers believe, and so these perverters 
of the Scriptures, these men who unhesitating- 
ly translate God’s words and thoughts into 
the thinking and wording of their own un- 
renewed reason, would have us believe and 
teach. But we believe that God is true, that 
He has not given His Word to us to confuse 
and deceive us. He tells us the truth. He 
says what He means. He wants us to under- 
stand Him. 

According to this inspired Word, the Holy 
Ghost is in the Godhead. He is the third per- 
son in the Trinity. He is a Person in the same 
sense in which the Father is a Person and the 
Son is a Person. Jesus names Him with the 
Father and the Son in the baptismal commis- 
sion. Mt. 28. 19. At the baptism of Jesus, 
He, the Son, was visibly baptized, the Father 


154 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


spoke audibly from heaven, and the Holy 
Ghost descended in the form of a dove and 
rested on Jesus. When Jesus was speaking to 
His disciples, He, the Son, promised that the 
Father would send them a Comforter, the 
Holy Ghost. In these three instances the 
whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, are 
working together, each in His own personlity, 
each on an equality with the other two. 
The historic Church has always so under- 
stood and so confessed. The ancient and 
modern Evangelical creeds harmoniously cen- 


fess that there is one God in three Persons; 
that the Father is God, that the Son is God, 


that the Holy Ghost is God, and that the three 
together are the one Triune God. 

The Holy Ghost is distinctly called God: 
Acts 5..3,4, “Ananias, why hath Satan filled 
thine herat to lie to the Holy Ghost? .... 
Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” 
1 Cor. 3. 16. “Know ye not that ye are the 
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in your” 

The Holy Ghost has the attributes of God. 
He is everywhere present. Read Psalm 139. 
He is Almighty. 1 Cor. 12. 11. “AII these 
worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, di- 
viding to every man severally as he will.” 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 155 


Read the preceding verses. Psalm 33.6. “By 
the word of the Lord were the heavens made, 
and all the host of them by the breath of his 
mouth.” Jos 33.4. “The Spirit of God hath 
made me.” Jesus said: “I cast out demons 
by the Spirit of God.” He is omniscient, i. e., 
He knows all things. 1 Cor. 2. 10. ‘““The Spirit 
searcheth all things.” He is called the eter- 
nal Spirit. He brooded upon the face of the 
waters in the beginning before God had made 
a world out of chaos. This doctrine of the 
Person of the Holy Spirit is fundamental. 

This Holy Spirit then is God in the same 
sense in which either one of the other two per- 
sons of the Holy Trinity is God. He is my 
Life-giver, my Sanctifier. As seen in a for- 
mer paragraph, He is the very God I so often 
need, to Whom I can confidingly pray in my 
spiritual distress. He hears and answers true 
prayer. 

Let us look at the works of God the Holy 
Ghost. 

As the third Person in the one Godhead, 
the Holy Spirit had from the beginning a 
part in every work of God. He is mentioned 
in the second verse of the first chapter of the 
Bible, as moving or brooding upon the primi- 
tive, chaotic, watery world. He had a part 


156 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


in creation. He is mentioned again and again 
in the Old Testament as striving with man, 
filling men, giving them wisdom, as coming 
upon and resting on men, as speaking through 
men. He inspired the writers of the Old Tes- 
tament books, for “holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 

But He had not yet come in all His fulness 
and power. Prophets predicted a special out- 
pouring of the Spirit upon all flesh. This 
special outpouring did not come until Christ 
had finished His work of redeeming man. 

Christ Himself promised and explained 
that New Testament coming of the Spirit. 
That wonderful farewell address to His dis- 
ciples on the eve of His suffering and death, 
recorded in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and six- 
teenth chapters of John, deals largely with the 
sending, the coming, and the work of the Holy 
Ghost, the Comforter. 

Jesus Christ had promised, “I will build my 
Church.” Mt. 16. 18. This Church was stil! 
in the future. In a sense there had been a 
Church in the Old Testament. In Acts 7. 38, 
Stephen speaks of a Church that was “in the 
wilderness.” The people of Israel, gathered 
about and worshiping in God’s tabernacle, 
were God’s Old Testament Church. After- 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 157 


wards they worshiped in God’s temple, on 
Mount Zion in Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the Temple 
are often personified and typified as God’s 
dwelling place, God’s Church. The Book of 
Psalms was the Hymn-Book of the Old Tes- 
tament Church. That Book is full of appre- 
ciation and praise of this Church. Read, for 
example, Psalms 46, 48, and 84. To be a 
doorkeeper, to dwell in the House of the 
Lord, are accounted as the most precious 
privileges. The Prophets promise glorious 
things to the future Zion, the perfected New 
Testament Church, which Christ made possi- 
ble and promised to build. 

Jesus had instructed His disciples to tarry 
in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the 
Father which He had given them. It is in- 
teresting to note how seriously these disciples 
took this waiting. ‘They all continued with 
one accord in prayer and supplication.” Acts 
1.14. They listened to Peter as he expounded 
and applied the Scriptures. 

They realized that something new was 
about to take place. ‘They organized for work. 
They had an election and filled up the breach 
that had been made in the Apostolate. They 
were ready. Pentecost was here. In a mirac- 


— 
ee 
— 
ee 


158 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


ulous way the Spirit came. The New Testa- 
ment Church was born. 

That Pentecost has always been looked upon 
as the birthday of the Church. The Holy 
Spirit in all His fulness was here. He had 
come to stay. Jesus had said: “He shall 
abide with you forever.” He has been in and 
with the Church ever since. He is the 
Church’s ever-present, living and life-giving 
Spirit. Should He ever leave the Church, she 
would die. 

Where those emotional Christians, who are 
guided by their own impulsive feelings more 
than by the teaching of the Word, get the idea 
that the Holy Spirit came only as a transient 
guest and then departed and comes again in 
times of special revival and then goes again, 
we never could understand. It is a confusing 
and comfortless notion. The Spirit need never 


/ come again in the same miraculous way. We 


need not, we should not pray for, another 
such a Pentecost. The Holy Spirit abides 
in the Church forever. There is no trouble 
about His presence. The trouble is with those 
who do not believe in His constant presence 
and do not use His life-giving Means. 

On the very day when, by His coming, the 
Church had been born, He began to work in 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 159 


His ordinary way through His own means. 
He used human instrumentalities. That has 
ever been God’s plan. God’s way is to bring 
His saving grace to man through and by man. 
He used Peter, then others. Read the Book of 
Acts. He used Apostles and laymen and 
women. 

God has given into the hands of His human 
agents certain Means. These Means are God- 
made and God-given. We merely name the 
Means of Grace here. They will come up 
again. 

The first and great Means, the Means 
which makes and conditions the other Means, 
is the Word of God. Many otherwise good 
people have never grasped this precious 
truth. They are destitute of that abiding as- 
surance and comfort and joy which this doc- 
trine brings. To them the Bible is a book of 
information, of instruction, and a guide—only 
this, and nothing more. 

The Bible is all this, but it is also much 
more. It tells me what I must do to be saved. 
But it also conveys to me the strength to do it. 
Jesus says, (John 6. 63) “The words that I 
speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are 
life.’ In Romans |. 16 Paul says of the Gos- 
pel: “It is the power of God unto salvation to 


160 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


everyone that believeth.” Heb. 4. 12 says: 
“The word of God is quick [living] and 
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 
sword.” In 1 Peter 1. 23, the New Birth is 
ascribed to the Word: “Born again, not of 
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
ever.” Also James 1. 21, “Receive with meek- 
ness the engrafted word, which is able to save 
your souls.” Could the Word more plainly 
claim for itself that it conveys power and life? 
It is life and begets life and nourishes life, 
because the Spirit of God, who gave and in- 
spired it, uses it and conveys Himself to man 
through it. In 2 Cor. 3.8 Paul calls the Gos- 
pel a “ministration of the spirit.” In Eph. 
6. 17 he calls it “the sword of the Spirit.” 

We might go on and show from the Word 
that the same saving operations are ascribed 
indiscriminately to the Spirit and to the 
Word: thus clearly showing that where one 
is, there the other is also, and that one acts 
through the other. Calling, enlightening, re- 
generating, and sanctifying are all ascribed to 
both the Spirit and the Word, because the 
Spirit works through, and brings saving and 
sanctifying Grace through the Word. 

On the day when the spirit had come in 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 161 


Pentecostal power on the gathered disciples, 
and the Church had thus been born, Peter 
preached the Word. Through that preaching 
of the Word three thousand were awakened 
when they were “pricked in their hearts.” 
They cried out: “Men and brethren, what 
shall we dor” The Holy Spirit was now 
working in the Church through His own 
chosen Means. 

Peter exhorted the awakened ones to repent 
and be baptized. Here he brings in another 
Means of Grace, the Sacrament of Baptism. 
Sacraments are never without the Word. The 
Word makes them, conditions them, and goes 
with them in their administration. They have 
been called the Visible Word, and the Sacra- 
mental Word. Of this more hereafter. 


The Church. 


The Church was born. The Holy Spirit 
was working. He was making disciples by 
“baptizing” and “teaching.” The infant 
Church “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ 
doctrine [or teaching] and fellowship, and in 
the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” The 
breaking of bread refers to the other Sacra- 
ment that had been instituted by Christ, the 
Holy Communion. God’s Word and Christ’s 


Luth, Fundamentals. 11. 


162 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


two Sacraments were at once in use. Through 
these Means, administered as instituted and 
commanded by Christ and used in a prayerful 
spirit, the Lord added daily to the Church 
such as were being saved. 

Christ had promised to build the Church. 
Through the Holy Spirit He was now build- 
ing. As by His Atonement He had made it 
possible for the Holy Spirit to come; as He 
had sent the Spirit, He is the Church’s one 
foundation. 1 Cor. 3.11. For other founda- 
tion can no man lay than that is laid, which 
is Jesus Christ. 

Eph. 2. 19-21. ‘Now therefore ye are no 
more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citi- 
zens with the saints, and of the household of 
God: and are built upon the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
being the chief corner stone; in whom all the 
building fitly framed together groweth unto 
a holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also 
are builded together for an habitation of God 
through the Spirit.” 

Christ is also the Head of the Church. Eph. 
1. 22, 23. “[ God] gave him to be head over 
all things to the church, which is his body, the 
fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Eph. 
4.1416. “That we... may grow up into 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 163 


him in all things, which is the head, even 
Christ; from whom the whole body, fitly 
joined together and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth, according to the ef- 
fectual working in the measure of every part, | 
maketh increase of the body unto the edifying 
of itself in love.” 

Christ loves the Church. His relation to 
the Church is likened to that existing between 
a loving husband and his wife. Eph. 5. 25. 
“Flusbands love your wives, even as Christ 
also loved the church.” In a true sense the 
Church is the Bride of Christ. In and through 
the Church the Holy Spirit speaks; “The 
Spirit and the bride say: Come.” The 
glorified Church, the Church triumphant, is 
frequently called the Bride of Christ. With 
this Bride Christ will sit down in glory, when 
many shall have come from the East and from 
the West and from the North and from the 
South, to celebrate the marriage supper of 
the Lamb. 

He purchased the Church with His blood. 
He “loved the Church.” He wooed and 
called and won her. ‘Yea, I have loved thee 
with an everlasting love; therefore, with lov- 
ing-kindness have I drawn thee.” He desires 
through His spirit to “cleanse her with the 


164 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


washing of water by the Lord, “so that He 
may present her as a glorious Church, not 
having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” 
Surely: 


“Glorious things of thee are spoken, 

Zion, City of our God!” 
The best uninspired definition of the Church 
that we know is that of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion; ‘“[he Church is the assembly of saints, 
or believers, in which the Gospel is rightly 
taught, or preached, and the sacraments are 
rightly administered,” i. e., as Christ insti- 
tuted them. 

This definition fits finely the Church that 
was brought to its birth by the Holy Spirit on 
the day of Pentecost. It fits the spirit and 
work of that Church as it is depicted all 
through the Acts of the Apostles. 

There is nothing perfect in this world. No 
purely human being ever was, or ever will be, 
perfect in this world. Paul must have come 
as near to it as is possible. But he confessed 
that he was not perfect. He was still ever 
pressing forward and striving after the mark 
of his high calling. In the Church the Gos- 
pel net takes in fishes both bad and good. In 
the Church’s field in the world the wheat and 
the tares will grow together. The tares can- 


CHE HOLY SPIRE 165 


not all be gathered out until the harvest. 
There was a Judas among Christ’s twelve. 
Ananias and Sapphira were in the infant 
Church. And even there we find strife and 
contention; we find the Grecian widows mur- 
muring against the Hebrew widows. Only 
in so far as a member of the Church has put 
on Christ and is covered with the robe of His 
righteousness is he a saint, or holy person. 
“The Lord knoweth them that are His.”’ Such 
ones still have and commit sins of weakness, 
but they hate them, mourn over them, ex- 
ercise daily repentance, and ever strive to 
grow in grace and in the knowledge of God’s 
Word. ‘These are the true members of the 
Church. We cannot always pick them out. 
They are often called the Invisible Church, 
the true Church of Jesus Christ. 

In our time and in our land the Church is 
sadly divided. There are many Churches, so 
called, and many good people are perplexed 
by this sad situation. With which Church 
shall they uniter 

We cannot go into a discussion of this prob- 
lem here. We like the statement of that saint- 
ly and deeply spiritual old Lutheran theolo- 
gian, John Gerhard. In substance he says: 
The different Churches vary in their degrees 


166 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


of purity. Some are less pure, and some are 
more pure than others. ‘That is the purest 
Church which, as a whole, in her teaching and 
confession receives, believes, confesses, and 
teaches all things that the Holy Spirit teaches 
in God’s Word. After a life-long, painstak- 
ing and prayerful study of the Word Gerhard 
was satisfied that, by his own test, the Luther- 
an church is the most scriptural, and there- 
fore the purest, Church. With this we fully 
agree. 

Let every sincere seeker after God’s truth 
search, sift, compare, judge, prove all things, 
be fully persuaded in his own mind, hold fast 
that which is good. 

But let every one beware of the popular and 
perilous heresy that it makes no difference 
what a person believes. There is no solid 
Scripture ground for such a statement. 

Let us all learn to appreciate the goodness 
of God in. planting the Church in this world 
of sin. What would we be without the 
Church, her sermons and her sacraments, her 
hymns and prayers, and the blessed fellow- 
ship in the Communion of Saints. 

How sadly strange that so many men in our 
Christian land stand aloof from, and despise, 
the Church of Christ! How puzzlingly 


‘PHEPHOLY, SPIRET 167 


strange that men and women who claim to be 
intelligent prefer some man-made organiza- . 
tion or order to the Institution ordained by 
God, purchased and loved by Christ, brought 
into being and guided by the Holy Spirit! 

We go back to the work of the Holy Spirit 
in the Church. 

The Church was in operation. It was, and 
from that time forth has been, the Spirit’s 
work to strengthen, to build up, to build out, 
to expand the Church. Those in the Church 
needed to be nourished, fostered, edified, and 
made strong and ever stronger in the Lord 
and in the power of His might. Other mil- 
lions were to be won. 

Her blessed influence was to cover the 
earth, even as the waters cover the sea. The 
Church was to preach the Gospel to every 
creature, she was to make disciples of all 
nations. Through the Church the Holy 
Ghost wanted to save all who would allow 
themselves to be saved. 

Naturally and necessarily the Church had 
to begin by reaching, converting, and gather- 
ing grown up men and women. It was to 
these that Peter preached, and from these he 
won three thousand, and daily more and more 
were added to the Church through Word and 


168 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Sacrament as Grace-bearing means. But 
Peter was not satisfied to gather in adults 
alone. The Old Testament Church, in which 
he had been brought up, had from the be- 
ginning made members of her children when 
they were eight days old. Peter carried this 
ordainment of God over into the New Testa- 
ment Church, ‘““Uhe promise is unto you, and 
to your children,” he had preached in his first 
sermon. 

When Abraham had become a believer, he 
circumcised his sons. In the infant Church 
adults were first converted, then, in the house- 
hold baptisms, they and their children were 
added to the Church. So is it on our mission 
fields to-day; adults are won and converted; 
then they and their children are baptized. 

Where the Church is established, she, the 
Bride of Christ, with the same mind that was 
also in Christ Jesus, her Bridegroom, gathers 
the lambs in her arms and carries them in her 
bosom. ‘Then, following His instruction, she 
feeds His lambs. 

Families and nations perpetuate themselves 
and grow by adding children. So does the 
Church. By their natural birth children are 
not in covenant relationship with God. A 
theology that teaches that some children are 


THE HOLY SPIRIT 169 


elect, have a birthright in the Church, and 
naturally are born as children of the covenant, 
is inconsistent with the Bible teaching of 
universal, original sin. In the chapter on sin 
we have shown what and where children are 
when they come into the world. Read that 
chapter again. 

After their natural birth all children need 
a second birth, a birth from above, a regenera- 
tion. 

As the Sacrament of Baptism is an agency 
in infant regeneration, we consider that Sac- 
rament next. Then we return to Regenera- 
tion. 


CHAPTER X 
The Holy Spirit's Work in Baptism 


W°* deal first with Infant Baptism. We 
need not stop to argue that God loves 
little children. “God was in Christ reconcil- 
ing the world unto himself, not reckoning unto 
them their trespasses.” 2 Cor. 5. 19. Chil- 
dren are a large part of the human world 
which God so loved that for it ““He gave His 
only begotten Son.” The Son said: “It is 
not the will of your Father which is in heaven, 
that one of these little ones should perish.” 
These little ones are sin-sick. He has com- 
passion upon them. He desires to heal them. 

Can Hee Can God love them? Could 
Christ redeem them? Can the Holy Spirit 
apply to these little ones the blessings that 
Christ has purchased? Can He work in them 
a change of nature? Can He implant in them 
the germs of a new lifer 

We are almost ashamed to write down such 
questions. We do not ask them for ourselves. 
Surely no believer in God’s being, nature, and 


170 


BAPTISM 171 


attributes ought ever to dare to ask such ques- 
tions. Jesus tells us that out of stones God 
could raise up spiritual children to Abraham. 
Do we believe it? Dare we doubt Christ? 
But, can God make a covenant with a child 
that is unconscious of it? Can Her Why, 
God once made a covenant with the beasts of 
the field! Don’t you believe it? Read Gen. 
9. 9, 10, “And I, behold I established my 
covenant with you, and with your seed after 
you; and with every living creature that is 
with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of 
every beast of the earth with you.” Could 
Her Did Her Dare you doubt Him or 
His Word? 

Men make covenants, effective agreements, 
with their unconscious babies. Fathers, by 
writing their wills, bequeath to them their 
properties of every kind. These wills or 
covenants stand in law. They are effective. 
The babe in the crib or on its mother’s breast, 
when that covenant has been properly written 
and attested, really owns a farm, a business, 
a bank, or a share in a railroad. He doesn’t 
know or understand it. But that does not 
make the ownership less real. And will you 
say that God has less power than man, that 
He cannot bestow a spiritual benefit on an 


172 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


unconscious child? Is not this rationalism? 
Is it not skepticisme Is it not unbelief? 
Does it not destroy the very foundation of our 
Fundamentals?r”’ 

Jesus, in whom were hidden all the treas- 
ures of wisdom and knowledge, once showed 
us, in a sentence, the two roots of all error 
and unbelief. ‘The Sadducees were the Ra- 
tionalists, the skeptics, the unbelievers of His 
day. ‘They were out to show Jesus that His 
teachings were unreasonable and even ridic- 
ulous. Jesus said to them: “Ye do err, not 
knowing the scriptures, nor the power of 
Gods? Mite22.°292 Wass ever more truth 
packed into fewer words? ‘These words are 
seldom appreciated. They deserve more care- 
ful and prayerful study than they get. They 
are fundamental. ‘hey show us the roots of 
all heresy, unbelief, apostasy, and sinful sep- 
arations from the New Testament Church. 
They show up the rationalism of the objec- 
tions against infant regeneration through bap- 
tismal grace. 

Oh that men might know the Scriptures! 
That they might but realize that God wants 
His children to understand Him! That they 
might realize the danger of tampering with 
what is written, the danger of putting reason 


BAPTISM 173 


in the place of faith, of changing the wording, 
of fiippantly making out expressions to be 
figurative, because reason cannot apprehend 
them or because the carnal mind does not like 
them! O that they might realize that they 
need to compare Scripture with Scripture, 
that the difficult texts are to be explained by 
the plainer texts on the same subjects, and 
that they need to study all the passages that 
bear on a subject, carefully compare them 
with one another, and so find what the mind 
of the Spirit is and what the doctrine of the 
Scripture is! O that they might see the 
danger and the absurdity of building a doc- 
trine, or a sect, on a few isolated texts torn 
out of their connection and used as if they 
were the whole Bible! The devil tried to 
make Christ disloyal to His Father and to His 
own mission by saying, “It is written,” and 
quoting—rather misquoting—a single text out 
of its connection, and as if that text were all 
that is written. Jesus knew the Scripture and 
knew how to interpret and use it. He said: 
“Tt is written again,” i. e., there is more writ- 
ten than you quote. We must not pick out and 
believe only that which suits our notions and 
our desires. We dare not be “slow to believe 
all.” We must learn to study aright in order 


174 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


rightly to know the Scripture. The divided 
Church will never come to harmony so long 
which theologians and their creeds differ. 
‘The Church must begin by seeking to agree 
on principles of interpretation. 
~~ The-writer-of this-was-impressed for life 
when, as a seminary student, he heard the 
long since sainted Rev. Doctor Charles Por- 
terfield Krauth say in substance: ‘When 
Evangelical Reformed and Evangelical Lu- 
theran Christians argue against the Unitarians 
they use the same arguments, the same rules 
of interpretation, in the same manner; they 
use the same proof passages in the same sense. 
They find the same fault with the Unitarians 
| for misinterpreting, misapplying, allegoriz- 
,ing, and rationalizing Scripture. But when 
‘the Reformed argue against the Lutheran 
doctrines on the Sacraments, then the Re- 
'formed use Unitarian methods of argument, 
interpretation, allegorizing, and rationaliz- 
/ ing.’ When the Reformed and Lutheran 
_ Theologies once agree on principles of inter- 
pretation, they will begin to understand and 
\ approach each other. They must first know 
the Scriptures in the same way. 

The second heresy of the Sadducees was that 








BAPTISM 175 


they did not know the power of God. In this 
they were like those who question His ability 
to bless an unconscious babe. We want to 
know the Scriptures, we want to know the 
power of God. God wants to bless, make fit, 
and save little children. Hecan. He can do 
everything, except what would do violence 
to His nature as God. 

Can He regenerate the child through 
Means? Can He choose and use His own 
Means? Or shall we pick out Means for 
Hime These questions also answer them- 
selves. All through the Old Testament, God 
used Means. Among others, He used words, 
blood, water, figs, branches, and leaves. Jesus 
used Means. He healed by a word, a touch, 
a mixture of spittle and clay, the hem of His 
garment. He fed five thousand with a few 
loaves and fishes. He can do Godlike things 
through simple means. 

He ordained the Word and the Sacraments 
to be the Means, the channels, the vehicles, 
through which His Holy Spirit should con- 
vey redeeming and renewing grace to man. 

He instituted Holy Baptism. When He 
gave to that chosen group, that was about to 
become the nucleus of His Church, the Great 
Commission, to make disciples of all nations, 


176 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


He gave them the Means through which they 
were to carry on this stupendous task: By 
“baptizing” and by “teaching” they were to 
disciple and win the world. 

He instructed them to baptize into the 
Name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
Holy Ghost. The Triune God was to be in 
the administration of the Sacrament. The 
Holy Name of the Triune is used in every 
valid form of Baptism. The reverent repeat- 
ing of the name of the Three in One is 
the Word that goes with the water. To 
Nicodemus, Jesus puts water and spirit to- 
gether. Three things are present in every 
scriptural Baptism: Water, Word, and Spirit. 

We have already seen that in the first ser- 
mon to the newborn Church, Peter said: 
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in 
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of 
sins.” Ananias says to the penitent Saul: 
“Arise and be baptized and wash away thy 
sins.” Paul writes: Romans 6. 3, “Know ye 
not that so many of us as were baptized into 
Christ were baptized into His death?” Gal. 
3. 27, “For as many of you as have been bap- 
tized into Christ have put on Christ.” Eph. 
5. 26, Christ desires ‘‘to sanctify and cleanse” 
the Church “with the washing of water by 


BAPTISM 177 


the word.” Col. 2. 12, “Buried with him in 
baptism.” In Tit. 3. 5 Paul calls it “the 
washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
Holy Ghost.” 1 Pet. 3. 21 says, “Baptism doth 
also now save us.” 

These are the principal passages that speak 
of Baptism. Do they mean anything? Toa 
plain believer who has confidence in the pow- 
er of God and in the Word of God, what sense 
do they convey? Could such a reader, after 
carefully examining these and other passages 
that deal with the subject, say: there is nothing 
in Baptisme Could he say that it is only a 
form, a ceremony, a sign, a something that 
can do no harm, but is really of no conse- 
quenceP Can he find any real Scripture 
proof for such flippant, off-hand assertions? 
Or will he perhaps say that he has a right to 
his own opinions on the subject? Hold a 
moment! The right of private judgment is a 
precious right. The Reformation gave it 
back to the people; but, has it no limitations? 
Can it overthrow God’s teachings? Can it 
wave them aside with a wave of the hand or 
a toss of the head? That is what such flip- 
pant objections really come to. 

It is easy to say as has been said a thousand 
times: ‘What good can a little water dor” 


Luth, Fundamentals. 12. 


178 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


But hold! Is baptism nothing more than “a 
little water?” 

We have shown above that every properly 
administered Baptism has in it the Spirit, 
Word, and Water. Luther rightly says: 
“Baptism is not simply water, but it is the 
water comprehended in God’s Word and con- 
nected with God’s promise.” Even suppose 
it were “mere water,” what can not God do 
through a little water if He wants tor 

Again, what good can a little water do? 
No good at all, if the baptismal use of the 
water is a rite or ceremony instituted by man. 
No good at all, even if it had been instituted 
by the Church. God alone can institute a 
Sacrament and couple a blessing with it. 
Christis God. We get this simple Sacrament 
from the hands of the Son of God. As His 
ordinance, it is divine. It is above man’s 
reason or ‘criticism. He who truly believes 
in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, 
asks only: what does He, what do His inspired 
Apostles, say about it? He is satisfied with 
what is written. He makes his reason bow 
under the Word. He accepts, He trusts, He 
adores, He follows. 

Any principle of interpretation by which 
baptismal grace and regeneration can be elim- 


BAPTISM 179 


inated from the quoted passages will over- 
throw every doctrine of our holy Christian 
faith. 

There is a solid and comforting realism in 
the Lutheran theology and its teaching on 
Grace through Means. The Lutheran doc- 
trine of the Sacraments has in it a realism 
that is not found in any Reformed theology. 
The Lutheran theology here also is more loyal 
to what is written, and therefore furnishes a 
more solid ground for abiding rest and com- 
fort. 

The sad fact that many children lose their 
baptismal grace will come up when we discuss 
Conversion. 

Here some readers will naturally ask: If 
Baptism is really such a spirit-bearing, grace- 
bringing, life-giving Sacrament, what then of 
a child who, through no fault of its own, dies 
unbaptized? Is that child lost? Lutheran 
theology emphatically answers, No. Luther, 
Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and the other Lu- 
theran Reformers repudiate the idea. No 
acknowledged Lutheran theologian ever 
taught this repulsive doctrine. Lutheran 
theology accepts Augustine’s saying: “It is 
not the absence of the Sacrament, but the con- 
tempt of it, that condemns.” 


{ 


180 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Ordinarily God the Holy Ghost bestows 
His renewing grace on the child through 
Baptism. But while we are limited to the use 
of the Means that He has given, He is not 
so limited. He can use other Means; and, 
since it is not His will that any should perish, 
we believe that He does reach and change 
the unbaptized child in some other way. The 
fact that He has ordained a Means of Grace, 
so suited, so fitting for these sin-sick lambs, 
whom Christ purchased with His blood, gives 
us the comforting assurance that He renews 
and saves every one not reached by His ordi- 
nary Means. 


»——It was Calvinistic theology that taught the 


repulsive doctrine that there are infants in 
hell. Dr. Charles Hodge in his “Systematic 
Theology” denies this. Dr. C. P. Krauth, the 
great Lutheran Theologian, wrote a little 
book called “Infant Salvation in the Calvin- 
istic System.” In this Dr. Krauth marshals 
the great Calvinistic theologians from Calvin 
down, quotes their writings, and shows that 
they all taught what Hodge denied. So con- 
vincing was the proof that Dr. Hodge, be- 
tween whom and Dr. Krauth there was a 
warm, mutual friendship and admiration, 
wrote a letter to Dr. Krauth in which, like 


BAPTISM 181 


the Christian gentleman that he was, he frank- 
ly says, “Your paper proves that you are far 
better read in Calvinistic theology than I am.” 
This letter is published in full in Spaeth’s 
Biography of Charles Porterfield Krauth, 
Vou opage.3 17, 

We need not here discuss or prove the right 
to baptize infants. The opposition to it is 
dying out. It was and is untenable. John 
Bunyan, that devout Baptist, with his keen, 
clear, broad, and deep insight into the teach- 
ings of the old Bible, had all his children bap- 
tized. Why shouldn’t hee Children need 
grace. Baptism confers grace. The Church, 
the Bride of Christ, is the Holy Spirit’s work- 
shop. In and through the Church He dis- 
tributes to lost humanity the renewing and 
saving grace of God. The Church is made 
up of men, women, and children. In the Old 
Testament Church God instituted infant mem- 
bership. God never revoked this. Man dare 
not. The New Testament Church is not nar- 
rower, but broader, than the old. The divine 


commission is to baptize all nations. There 
never was a nation without children. Our na- 


tion’s census-takers enroll every infant as a 
part of the nation. The Church must not be 
narrower than the nation. Some one has dras- 


182 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


tically said that there are only two places in 
which there are no children, one is the 
Church that denies baptism to infants, and the 
other is hell. We should not have expressed 
it in this way, but there is truth in the ex- 
pression. 

And after all the pious Baptist mother’s 
heart is generally more Scripturally orthodox 
than her head. She looks into the smiling face 
of her babe, presses him to her bosom, and 
prays God to bless him. Deep down in her 
heart she knows that the babe needs God’s 
blessing and that God can bless the dear little 
one. Why not believe that He can and does 
bless little ones like hers through “the wash- 
ing of the water by the word’? 

/7 The devout Lutheran mother looks into her 

f baby’s eyes and from the depths of her heart 
thanks God that He has blessed him, im- 
planted the seeds of the new, divine life, and 
made of him a son of God and an heir of 
heaven. Blessed comfort! Her babe is a 
lamb of Christ’s flock and bears on his body 
the marks of the Lord Jesus. 


CHAPTER XI 
Regeneration and Justification 


MONG theologians there has been much 

difference of opinion as to the place that 
Regeneration should occupy in their so-called 
systems. ‘Their systems are variant; often un- 
natural and confusing. Some place Conver- 
sion, Contrition, Faith, and Justification in 
this order, before Regeneration. Others have 
this arrangement: Faith, Justification, the 
Gospel Call, Illumination, and then Regen- 
eration. Others again have this order: Grace, 
Faith, Justification, Calling, Illumination, 
Regeneration, Conversion, and Sanctification. 
Still others systematize thus: Grace, Call- 
ing, Illumination, Mystical Union, Renova- 
tion, Sanctification. Doctor Philip Schaff in 
his Theological Propedeutic, or Outline of 
Theology, does not outline a system, but sug- 
gests that the Work of the Holy Spirit in 
man, or Pneumatology, can be comprehended 
and arranged under Regeneration and Sancti- 
fication. With proper subdivision, this strikes 
us as natural and sensible. 

183 


184 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


The writer of this is not a dogmatician in 
the scientific sense. He claims to know what 
Scriptural dogmatics ought to teach. His 
chair is Practical Theology. His mind tends 
to run along practical lines. He believes 
that there is such a thing as sanctified com- 
mon sense. He believes that, within proper 
limitations, there is natural law in the spir- 
itual world, though he does not agree with 
all that Drummond says on this subject. He 
has long since had a quarrel with the artifi- 
cial systems builded by some learned dogma- 
ticians. He has no quarrel with the teach- 
ings, the doctrines, of true Lutheran Theolo- 
gy. It is the too much over-refining and sys- 
tematizing that he objects to. He also finds 
fault with many far-fetched statements and 
expressions, used to bolster up the systems. 
He heartily agrees with the oft repeated 
statement that it is the task of all true Theolo- 
gy to answer for fallen and guilty man that 
most important of all personal questions: 
What must I do to be saved? He believes that 
Theology ought to be so clearly stated that 
the every-day, ordinary layman would be 
able to interest himself in it and be helped, 
comforted, and strengthened by it. Dogma- 
tics ought to be so presented that it can be 


REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 185 


preached to the common people and that 
they will hear it gladly. 

Too much systematizing, too much divid- 
ing and hair-splitting and split-splitting does 
not help the common sinner. And he is the 
one that needs to be helped. Our churches 
are full of him. May this little book help the 
preacher so to preach sound doctrine that his 
every sermon may interest, attract, and help 
the common sinner. 










logy, never builded a.th€ological system. He 
wrote and preaetied sound doctrine forthe 


common 


Calvin omked out-and left for posterity a 2 


system, a logical system, a masterful sys- 
tem, a wonderful system. The Westminster 
Shorter Catechism epitomizes that system. 
That Catechism has been used as a textbook 
in Logic in some of the best educational in- 
stitutions. Luther’s Small Catechism from 
the day of its publication has been used as 
a book of devotion. It is the only catechism 
that can be prayed. Calvin’s Institutes and 
the Confessions, the catechisms and theology 
that have been drawn out of it and builded 


“Phe_Holy Spirit never builled a system, 
but He pave Rs. truth we, ned, Hi 
ther, the people’s man, the incoln A theo- 


Cine a 
RS 


186 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


on it, could not be preached. The Insti- 
tutes loaded a burden on the Churches that 
neither they nor their children were able to 
bear. The great, grand Presbyterian Church, 


whose excellencies we have always admired, 


and whose people we love, has groaned and 
suffered under the colossal burden of the the- 
ology of Calvin’s Institutes. It is pitifully 
torn and divided to-day. Other Churches are 
torn and distracted because they have no theo- 
logy, no system at all. We believe that we 
can find order and method in the work of the 
Holy Spirit. We believe that the Spirit, us- 
ing His own chosen Means, begins some- 
where in man and progresses in a way best 
suited to man’s nature. 

That Holy Spirit finds man full of sin, in- 
clined to evil as naturally as sparks incline 
to fly upward. He must re-create man. He 
must give him another birth, a new birth, a 
birth from above, a birth of the Spirit. He 
must implant into man the beginnings of a 
new life. This is regeneration. It is God 
the Holy Ghost’s first work in man. 

In discussing this great fundamental sub- 
ject it is important that we be clear as to what 
we are talking about. There are differences 
between the work of regenerating an infant 


REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 187 


and the work of regenerating an adult. Of 
the latter we shall speak more fully when we 
discuss Conversion. Here we confine our- 
selves to the work of regeneration in infants. 

We have already studied the Means which 
the Holy Spirit uses in reaching and chang- 
ing the child. The Means is holy Baptism. 
In discussing Baptism we have anticipated 
much that pertains to regeneration. We re- 
call that through Baptism the Holy Spirit 
implants the beginnings—the germs, or seeds 
—of the new life. It is not a full grown, a 
mature, life that is implanted. It is a small 
beginning, suited to a small, young child. It 
is, therefore, called a birth. The result of a 
birth is not a man, but a babe. At birth that 
babe has all the potencies of a full, strong 
life. The possibilities and powers are there, 
but they are in the germinal stage. Sin is 
there, but sin is not yet developed. Why 
should it be impossible for grace to be there, 
though not yet developed? Is sin stronger 
than grace? The limbs and organs and senses 
are all there, but undeveloped. The facul- 
ties of mind and reason are there, but unde- 
veloped. The infant is not conscious of these 
potential possessions; shall we therefore deny 
that he has them? As we saw above, a rich 


188 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


legacy may be given to the babe. The legacy 
has thus become babe’s own. Huis not being 
conscious of it does not make the possession 
less real. Even so the babe may have and 
hold new life and grace, spiritual potencies 
and powers, though all unconscious of these 
possessions. 

The elements of the new, the spiritual life 
are penitence and faith. Penitence means 
a knowledge of sin, a sense of sinfulness, a 
feeling of guilt, a hatred of sin, a longing for 
forgiveness and deliverance from sin. This 
is penitence, or contrition. It is sometimes 
called repentance. This word, in the Scrip- 
ture, is, however, often used in a wider sense 
and is made to embrace faith also. For clear- 
ness, therefore, it is always better to use the 
word penitence, or contrition, when speak- 
ing of the first element of the new life. Peni- 
tence might then be called the negative ele- 
ment of the new life. It is a breaking with sin, 
an aversion to it, a breaking away from it. 

The other element of the new life, the posi- 
tive element, is faith. Penitence looks within; 
it mourns and longs. Faith looks outward, 
away from self. Finding no deliverance in 
self, faith sees in the proffered Christ the 
One who has taken all the sinner’s sin upon 


REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 189 


Himself and suffered all that the sinner de- 
served to suffer. Faith looks to Him, lays 
hold of Him and finds in Him a free, a full, 
salvation. He who has thus experienced con- 
trition for sin, cast himself upon and surren- 
dered himself to Christ, has the new life. He 
is born again. He is a new creature. He is 
a son of God. 

The Holy Ghost through baptism can, and 
does, implant into the young soul these ele- 
ments of the new life in embryo or germ 
form. The germs of penitence and faith have 
been implanted through Baptism. Regenera- 
tion is there. Grace put it there. The child 
is born again. It goes without saying that 
this potential life requires nourishing and 
fostering for its healthy development. To 
this we shall return when we treat of sancti- 
fication. 

For clearness’ sake it may be well, even at 
the risk of future repetition, to point out here 
a few of the most striking differences between 
the Holy Spirit’s work in regenerating an in- 
fant and His work in regenerating an adult. 

The adult has his physical and mental 
powers fully developed. He can think, rea- 
son, and understand. He can refuse to ac- 
cept and believe what is offered to his under- 


190 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


standing. When the Holy Spirit speaks to 
him through the Word, shows him his guilt 
and need; when that Spirit offers him Christ 
and Salvation, he can resist, harden his own 
heart, stifle his feelings, and so refuse to 
yield. ‘The infant never resists. 

On the other hand when the Holy Spirit 
shows the sinner his sin and need, by and 
through the enlightening Word, He conveys 
power to cease resisting, to repent and believe. 
The sinner is thus regenerated. At the same 
time he is converted. Of this more hereafter. 


Justification. 


The doctrine of justification by faith alone 
is most prominent in the theology of the Re- 
formation. Luther calls it “the doctrine of 
a standing or a falling Church.” It was the 
turning point of the Reformation. The 
Church of Rome was a falling Church, fall- 
ing lower and ever lower in proportion as 
she drifted farther and ever farther from the 
Pauline interpretation of Christ and of His 
work for man. Luther had to have a deep- 
going and searching experience of the power 
and guilt of sin, of his own utter failure to 
make himself good enough to be justified in 
God’s sight by his own strivings, doings, mor- 


REGENERATION anp JUSTIFICATION 191 


tifications, penances, prayers, and ritual ob- 
servances. Instead of finding peace he only 
sank into ever deeper gloom and despair, 
until he was found on the damp floor of his 
cell, having fainted away from exhaustion on 
account of his protracted vigils, fastings, and 
self-torture. He had to learn further that 
it was not in himself that he was to look for 
a righteousness acceptable to God, but that 
Jesus Christ, by His life of obedience to the 
law and by His vicarious death on the cross, 
had wrought out a righteousness pleasing to 
God; that Christ did not need this righteous- 
ness for Himself, but that He had procured it 
for poor, sinful brother Martin and for all 
other poor sinners who want it. Luther had to 
learn to believe this; and when he did believe 
it, when out of his broken and contrite heart 
he did reach up a trembling hand and grasp 
Christ, then he was justified on account of 
Christ, then he realized that his sin was all 
forgiven, then there flowed into his soul a 
peace that passes all understanding. Luther 
had experienced and now understood justifi- 
cation by faith. 

Has not a large part of the Protestant 
Church practically lost this Reformation 


192 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


doctrine? Has she not lost the blessed ex- 
perience that comes from rightly accepting 
it? Is she not unconsciously drifting back 
into the old Romish heresy of justification by 
works, by service, by doing? Is she not, un- | 
consciously perhaps, drifting into the Ration- 
alistic and Unitarian idea of justification by 
self-made characterr 

The Church needs to restudy, to reaccept, 
to reaffirm, to reexperience justification by 
faith. This is fundamental. 

This doctrine regulates all other doctrines. 
It presupposes and demands a right under- 
standing and acceptance of the Doctrine of 
God, the Doctrine of Man, the Doctrine of 
Sin, the Doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit, and the Doctrine of the 
Church. It is necessary for an appreciative 
understanding of the Doctrine of the Last 
Things. 

What do we mean by Justification? It is 
that act of God in which He forgives the 
penitent and believing sinner all his sins, re- 
mits all their penalties, declares him right- 
eous, and treats him as if he were innocent 
and holy. All this He does, not on account 
of any worthiness or merit in the sinner, but 
solely on account of the merit and satisfac- 


REGENERATION anp JUSTIFICATION 193 


tion of Christ, apprehended and appropri- 
ated by faith. 

Justification is not a change in man’s na- 
ture, but a change in his standing before God. 
Instead of standing before God guilty and 
condemned, he stands acquitted, released, re- 
garded and treated as if he had never been 
guilty or condemned. Justification takes 
place, not in man, but outside of man and for 
man. It is a judical act of God. Read the 
argument in the third and fourth chapters 
of Romans and note the parallel passages. 
Rome taught that Justification is an infusing 
of righteousness into man. Many nominal 
Protestants follow Rome. 

The originating cause of justification is the 
love of God. God looked upon man in his 
sin, his guilt, his helplessness, his hopeless- 
ness and condemnation. God pitied him, 
planned for him, and worked out that won- 
derful scheme of redemption whereby God 
could be just and yet justify the ungodly. 

The ground of justification, as we have 
seen, is in the vicarious obedience of Christ; 
First, his active obedience, when He took 
man’s place and obeyed the law in man’s 
stead. Then in His passive or suffering obe- 


Luth. Fundamentals. 13. 


194. LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


dience, when He endured all the penal suf- 
fering that«guilty man had deserved. 

This righteousness of Christ, purchased by 
Him and proffered to the sinner, must be 
laid hold of and appropriated by him. As 
we have seen in studying Regeneration, it is 
faith out of a penitent heart that reaches up, 
lays hold of Christ, and makes His righteous- 
ness its own. It is not the faith that works 
or merits justification. It is Christ who justi- 
fies. Faith lays hold of Christ’s merit. Faith 
sees in that merit the only hope. Faith grips 
and clings to Christ. It is the gripping char- 
acteristic that makes faith justifying. Faith 
has no merit in itself, but faith holds Christ. 
A faith thus holding Christ justifies. It is the 
Christ whom it holds that makes it justifying. 

Such a faith is not a mere intellectual be- 
lief. It is not a cold acknowledgment of 
the truth of the doctrine. Such a cold belief 
is a dead faith. Saving faith cannot be of 
the head alone. “With the heart man be- 
lieveth unto righteousness.” The heart is 
the seat of the emotions. The heart must be 
penitent. Penitence is a feeling. Contrition 
is a feeling. It is the broken and contrite 
heart that God does not despise, but in which 
He delights to dwell, because that is the only 


REGENERATION anp JUSTIFICATION 195 


kind of a heart that can appreciate Christ and 
longingly, lovingly, livingly lay hold of Him 
and trust in Him, and in Him alone. 

Oh how cold, how formal, how external, 
how heady, how purely intellectual is much 
of the preaching on faith and justification! 
And this is unhappily true of the preaching in 
many orthodox Lutheran pulpits. It is head, 
head, head! The preacher doesn’t even seem 
to know that with the heart man believeth. 
Luther’s living, loving, burning words on the 
faith that justifies made John Wesley write in- 
to his Journal, where he tells of hearing Lu- 
ther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans 
read: “I felt my heart strangely warmed, I 
felt that I also was justified.” Luther had ex- 
perienced justification. He knew that heart- 
penitence must be an element in justifying 
faith. Are these cold, intellectual preachers 
without heart-experience? Are they them- 
selves unjustified? Does this explain the bar- 
renness of so much present day preaching? 

Faith must be living, but it is not its liv- 
ingness that justifies. It is its grippingness 
and what it grips and holds that saves. 

Adoption grows out of such justification. 

The justified one has peace with God. He 
is adopted into the family of the redeemed. 


196 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


He is a member of the household of faith. 
Such an one is a son or a daughter of God, an 
heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. 
John 1. 12, “As many as received him, to 
them gave He power to become the sons of 
God, even to them that believe on His name.” 
Rom. 8. 14, 16, “For as many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” 

. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with 
our spirit that we are the children of God.” 
2 Cor. 6. 17, 18, “I will receive you, and will 
be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
sons and daughters.” Gal. 4. 6, “Because ye 
are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of 
His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father.” 1 John 3. 1, “Behold what man- 
ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us, that we should be called children of God.” 

Adoption is thus one of the precious fruits 
of justification. 

A like precious fruit is what has been 
called the believer’s Mystical Union with 
Christ. This is most beautifully brought 
home to us by Christ’s wonderful words on 
the vine and the branches in John 15. 1-8. 
As the branch is united with the vine, draws 
its substance and life from the vine, and is 
part of it, so is the justified believer united 


REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 197 


with Christ and Christ with him. Rom 8. ], 
10, “There is therefore now no condemna- 
tion to them that are in Christ Jesus... And 
if Christ is in you, the body is dead because 
of sin; but the spirit is life because of right- 
eousness.” 1 Cor. 6. 15, 17, “Know ye not 
that your bodies are the members of Christ? 

. But he that is joined unto the Lord is 
one spirit.” Gal. 2. 20, “I am crucified with 
Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me.” Eph. 2. 22, “In whom 
ye also are builded together for an habita- 
tion of God through the Spirit.” Eph. 3.17, 
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by 
faith.” Eph. 5. 30, “For we are members of 
his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” 2 
Pet. 1. 4, ““Whereby are given unto us ex- 
ceeding great and precious promises; that by 
these ye might be partakers of the divine na- 
ture.’ 1 John 1. 3, “And truly our fellow- 
ship is with the Father, and with his Son 
Jesus Christ.” 

Truly the fruits of justification are rich 
and precious. More’s the pity that justifica- 
tion is so often preached so heartlessly, in such 
a cold and lifeless way. In all our study of 
theological fundamentals, in every chapter, 
let us bear in mind and never forget that the 


198 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


true, the really Scriptural, Fundamentalist 
appreciates, and ever insists on, the clear 
head, but also always insists on, and absolute- 
ly demands, the warm heart. 

We have placed justification next to re- 
generation; they belong together. In thought 
we keep them apart. It is important that we 
ever bear in mind the distinction between the 
two. Regeneration is not justification and 
justification is not regeneration. But, in time, 
they go together. When one is regenerated, 
then at that moment he is also justified. Peni- 
tence and faith are the content of regenera- 
tion. How could one have these and not be 


justified P 


CHAPTER XII 
Conversion 


NOTHER important fundamental, an in- 
tensely important one. Eternal destinies 
hang upon it. Every one is personally inter- 
ested. ‘lo be in an unconverted state is to be 
in a state of grave personal peril. It is of 
vital importance that every one who is at all 
interested in the Christian religion should be 
clear on the subject. Many good people are 
not clear. We are often confronted with the 
strange paradox that people who talk and 
even preach most about it are most unclear 
as to its meaning and as to how it is brought 
about. 

What is Conversion? ‘The word con- 
vert means to turn, to turn around, to face 
about. A traveler finds himself going in the 
wrong direction, he turns, returns, changes 
his course. He converts himself. In the re- 
ligious sense Conversion means a _ turning 
from sin to righteousness, from Satan to God. 
The unconverted man has been walking in 


199 


200 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


the way of enmity and disobedience to God, 
toward eternal death. He comes to himself, 


he realizes where he is and whither he is 
going. He is halted. He faces about. He 
is turned into the way of righteousness, to- 
ward eternal life. He is converted. There 
has been a change of direction, but this is 
not all. It is a change of state—from a state 
of sin to a state of grace. It is still more, it 
is a change of nature. From being an un- 
saved sinner, he is changed into a saint. 
There is also a change of relation. From 
being an alien and an outcast he is brought 
into the relation of a child and an heir. His 
turning about, or conversion, has brought 
about an entire change. The converted one 
is different, he is a new man in Christ Jesus. 
When Jesus was sending Paul to the Gen- 
tiles to convert them, Acts 26. 15-18, He 
described the work of conversion: Paul was 
“To open their eyes and to turn them from 
darkness to light, and from the power of Sa- 
tan unto God, that they may receive forgive- 
ness of sins, and inheritance among them 
which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” 
Looking more closely into this transforma- 
tion called Conversion we find in it the in- 
coming of the two new elements that we have 


CONVERSION 201 


previously designated as the constituent parts 
of the new life: 

Penitence, contrition, heart-sorrow for sin 
—this is the first step in, or the first part of, 
Conversion. The sinner has been halted. 
He has been made to realize his lost, ruined, 
and guilty state. Realizing the heinousness, 
the damnableness of his sin; recognizing the 
justness of God’s wrath and condemnation, he 
now hates his sin and cries out for deliverance. 
He is in the way of Conversion. He con- 
fesses: “I am vile.” “I loathe myself.” “O 
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death?” 

To this repenting sinner the Christ, the 
whole Christ and His full, completed re- 
demption must now be offered. Through the 
foolishness of sound preaching he must be 
made to see Christ as his sin-bearer. He must 
come to see “all his sins on Jesus laid.” He 
must come to see what the vicarious Atone- 
ment, described above, means in itself and 
what it means for him. This pure and full 
preaching of the Cross, as God’s power un- 
to salvation, must grip him and convert him. 
By and through the Word the Holy Spirit 
begets faith. The penitent sinner reaches up 
a trembling hand of faith. He grasps the 


202 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


cross. He casts himself upon the Saviour. 
He cries out first, “Lord if Thou wilt, Thou 
canst make me clean”; then, “Lord, I believe, 
help ‘Thou mine unbelief”; and finally, joy- 
fully, “My Lord and my God.” This is faith. 
The sinner is converted. 

Many years ago an Indian who had mur- 
dered a man was brought in chains to the 
/little town of Zelienople, Pa., and locked up 
‘ in the jail. The Lutheran minister, Gottlieb 
Bassler, a true soul-curate, went daily to the 
felon’s cell and endeavored to bring the In- 
dian to Conversion. As a true Scriptural 
evangelist Bassler began with the Law. By the 
Law is the knowledge of sin. He tried to 
show that heathen how he had broken the 
Law of the God of high heaven who says: 
“Thou shalt not kill.” Day by day for weeks 
the faithful minister kept on sowing the seed 
of the Word and watering it with prayers 
and tears. The pastor was growing discour- 
aged. The Indian’s heart seemed as adamant 
as his face. But the pastor kept on preach- 
ing the sharpness of the Law. One morning on 
entering the cell he noticed that the hard face 
was changed. There were traces of tears on 
the brown cheeks. The Indian rose up to greet 
the pastor, stretched out his hands and cried: 


CONVERSION 203 


“O father, me break law, me break law!” The 
hammer of the Law had broken the stony 
heart. It had become a lowly and a contrite 
heart. He was God’s penitent. Now, and not 
till now, he was ready for the story and the 
meaning of the cross. By its preaching faith 
came and the Indian was converted. 

Who needs conversion? 

Not everyone, but certainly all who are not 
in a converted state. All who do not have in 
their hearts true penitence for sin and true 
faith in Jesus Christ. All such are in the gall 
of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. 
All such must be converted or be lost. 

We have learned in a former chapter that 
where little children have Christ’s Sacrament 
of Baptism administered to them, the seeds 
of the new life, the germs of penitence and 
of faith, are implanted. Such baptized chil- 
dren are the lambs of Christ’s flock. If prop- 
erly and spiritually nourished, watched and 
guarded and tended, they grow up into sheep 
of Christ’s fold. Many of them never lose their 
baptismal grace. With growing conscious- 
ness they become more and more clear in 
their knowledge of sin and grace. Where 
properly instructed they learn consciously to 
appreciate the blessings bestowed in baptism. 


204. LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Penitence for sin and faith in Christ grow 
with the years. They are ever children in 
the House. They have not become run-away 
prodigals. 

Luther in his small Catechism, asks: What 
does such baptizing with water signify? He 
answers: “It signifies that the old Adam in 
us is to be drowned and destroyed by daily sor- 
row and repentance, together with all sins 
and evil lusts; and that again the new man 
should daily come forth and rise, and live in 
the presence of God in righteousness and 
purity forever.” 

Whoever thus lives up to, and utilizes, the 
blessings of baptism; whoever thus exercises 
daily repentance, by daily drowning the old 
man, his sins and evil lusts; whoever thus 
daily exercises faith and daily makes the new 
man come forth and rise, remains in cove- 
nant relationship with God. He always hates 
sin and trusts in Christ. He never knows of 
a time when he did not love his Saviour; not 
always as fervently as he should, but he al- 
ways wanted to love Him. He never wil- 
fully and with set purpose broke away like a 
prodigal son. He needs no conscious, crisis 
conversion. The sainted Dr. Cuyler once 


CONVERSION 205 


said: ‘The children of Christian parents 
ought never to need conversion.” 

But many, all too many, largely through 
the fault of parents, guardians, and teachers, 
do lose their baptismal grace. Some simply 
neglect the Means of Grace, grow indiffer- 
ent, cold, worldly, and come to live as if they 
had never been touched by divine grace. 
Others wilfully break away and repudiate 
all that has been done for them. Still others 
never were either baptized or instructed in 
the things of God. They have grown up as 
heathen in a Christian land. All such need 
conversion. This ought to be preached every 
Sunday in every church. 

How is this transforming change brought 
about? Can a man convert himself? Em- 
phatically, No; no more than the Ethiopian 
can change his skin or the leopard his spots. 
Of this transforming change it is true that 
it is “not by might [i. e., not by human 
might], nor by the power, but by my spirit, 
saith the Lord.” ‘No man can say that Jesus 
is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” “TI be- 
lieve that I cannot by my own reason or 
strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or 
come to Him,” says Luther. 

Conversion is a divine work. The Spirit 


206 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


of God must bring it about. As we have 
seen above, He works through the Word. 
Through the Word He calls. Every time a 
warning or inviting word from God is read, 
heard, remembered, or flashed into one’s con- 
sciousness, it is a call of God. 

With the Word the Holy Spirit enlightens 
and instructs the sinner, and shows him what 
he is, what he needs, and how to get what he 
needs. Every sermon that clearly sets forth 
God’s teaching on sin, grace, salvation, and 
the way to attain it; every Sunday-school les- 
son, every private conversation, every book or 
paper that thus instructs, is a divine illumina- 
tion, an enlightening by the Spirit of God. 
This calling and enlightening Word, where 
not wilfully and persistently resisted, works 
conviction of sin, contrition, and faith. 
Through the Word the Holy Spirit converts 
the sinner. 

In the adult who has fallen away from the 
grace of Baptism, Conversion is a turning 
back to that lost baptismal Grace. It is a 
quickening, a reviving of the erstwhile dor- 
mant elements of penitence and faith. It is 
an awakening from the sleep in sin, which 
sometimes becomes so deep that it is called 
being dead in sin, as in the case of the prodi- 


CONVERSION 207 


gal. But the prodigal was still a son. The 
baptized sinner is still baptized. Conversion 
returns him to his baptism and its content. 
He consciously appropriates that content. 

In the unbaptized adult, regeneration and 
conversion go together. ‘They are simultane- 
ous. Through the Word, penitence and faith 
are implanted; where these are there is regen- 
eration. Penitence and faith are at work. Con- 
version is there. We speak of the regenera- 
tion of infants, never of their conversion. Con- 
version requires consciousness. The unbap- 
tized adult is regenerated and converted at 
the same time. 

What part does the human will have in 
Conversion? 

On this point also there has been much seri- 
ous perplexity, confusion and spiritual hurt. 
Theologians have darkened counsel with 
words. They have made statements that stag- 
ger souls. They have driven earnest inquirers 
and seekers after peace with God unto doubt 
and despair by creating difficulties and con- 
tradictions where there need be none. We 
have met men and women who have had the 
joy taken out of life and who had been liv- 
ing under a cloud, because of unclearness and 
confusion on the subject of Conversion. We 


208, LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


have met others who had become rank un- 
believers; some of them had been confused 
by ignorant, superficial, and wild revivalists. 
They had been made to believe that they 
must by their own frantic efforts, by agoniz- 
ing groans and prayers and wrestlings, “get 
religion,” “get through,” and so raise them- 
selves into harmony with God. For such 
shallow, impulsive, and individualistic no- 
tions and doings there is neither precept nor 
example in Scripture. The scene that is likest 
to some such wild revival scenes is that of 
Elijah and the priests of Baal on Mount Car- 
mel. A large crop of skeptics and infidels 
has been the fruitage of such efforts at self- 
conversion. 

We have also met serious souls who had been 
so instructed in repellent and unscriptural 
doctrines on election that they too were walk- 
ing in the shadows, deeply perplexed and anx- 
ious. They tormented themselves with such 
questions as these: Were they elected? Would 
irresistible grace find, call, and convert them? 
When and how would this call come? Some of 
these confused ones were drifting into doubt 
and despair, others had already made ship- 
wreck of their faith and were bitter unbeliev- 
ers. Can that be Gospel truth, which thus 


CONVERSION 209 


drives souls away from God? Is the blame for 
nonsalvationin God, orisitinman? Some Lu- 
theran theologians come dangerously near to 
teaching the same kind of destructive doc- 
trine when they emphatically and persistent- 
ly insist, iterate and reiterate,, that man can 
do nothing at all toward his own salvation. 
Unexplained, unqualified, such a statement is 
dangerous. The hearer also has some under- 
standing, some judgment. He too does some 
logical thinking. He says: Well if that’s 
true why should I trouble myself. What’s 
the use? “I should worry!’ How careful we 
should be to make ourselves understood. 

Let us bear in mind what has been set forth 
and insisted on above. 

The natural man, untouched by the Spirit 
of God, is ignorant, blind, helpless and 
hopeless in his enmity to God. The whole 
man is full of sin. His mind is dark- 
ened, his heart is impure, his will is perverted. 
He is dead in trespasses and in sin. He needs 
to be quickened, made alive, converted. He 
needs a new light in his intellect, a new love 
in his heart, a new bent in his will. All this 
must come from God. God must reach down, 
touch, vivify, renew him. Life-giving and 
saving Grace must be brought to man by God | 


Luth, Fundamentals. 14. 


210 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


the Holy Ghost. But the Holy Ghost works 
through Means. His own Means convey His 
own Grace. We have shown above the scrip- 
turalness, the helpfulness, the preciousness of 
this doctrine that Grace comes through the 
Means of Grace. We repeat, that this doctrine, 
rightly understood and apprehended, bridges 
the otherwise impossible gulf between the sov- 
ereignty of God and the responsibilty of man. 
this doctrine that Grace comes through the 
Lutheran theology. Reformed theology has 
weakened and pauperized itself by refusing 
to understand, appreciate, and accept it. To 
Lutherans it is absolutely fundamental. 

The question as to Man’s agency in, and 
responsibility for, his own conversion ought 
never to be studied without ever keeping in 
mind that Grace comes through Means. 

We have seen that the Word is the Spirit’s 
principal Means. That the Word makes and 
conditions the Sacraments which are some- 
times called the Sacramental Word. In in- 
fancy renewing grace comes to us in Baptism, 
which is water and Word. After baptism 
Grace comes through the Word alone. To 
adults who need conversion the Holy Spirit 
must come through the Word, through Law 
and through Gospel. Through the Law He 


CONVERSION 211 


wakes contrition. ‘Through the Gospel He 
enkindles faith. The Word read, pondered, 
heard in conversation, in a teacher’s class, in 
a sermon, carries the Spirit and His Grace. 
The Word carries renewing and converting 
power. 

Now we come back. What can the uncon- 
verted man do, or what can he will to do to- 
ward his own conversion? 

First, ‘He 'can'go to the Word. He ’can 
read, ponder and hear. He thus does some- 
thing toward his own conversion. We want 
no argument with the fatalist who claims that 
man’s will cannot direct his body; that his 
will cannot choose between going to church 
or going to a picnic on Sunday morning. 
Man can by his own natural powers will to 
go or not to go to church. He can will to 
read the Bible or read the Sunday paper. If 
any one doubts it, let him try himself out. 

Second. At Church he can will to hear, 
to pay attention. As he hears and sees he is 
influenced. The dim religious light of the 
sanctuary, the impressive tones of the organ, 
the voices around him joining in responses, 
in prayer, in confession, in singing. All this 
has its influence. It is the influence cf an- 
other world. He is ina holy place. Uncon- 


212 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


sciously a feeling steals over him that he is 
not what he ought to be. He is in the Holy 
Spirit’s workshop. ‘The Bride of Christ is 
throwing over and around him a holy atmos- 
phere. The windows are open toward the 
New Jerusalem. The minister opens his 
mouth. Oh that he may be, in the full sense, a 
messenger of God to guilty man! He speaks 
as the oracle of God. As an ambassador of 
Christ he beseeches in Christ’s stead: “Be ye 
reconciled to God.” ‘The hearer hears. The 
Spirit through the preached Word would 
bring into the sinner’s soul sorrow for sin and 
faith in Christ. The Spirit strives to bring in 
the new light into the intellect, the new love 
into the heart, the new bent into the will. 

The hearer still has the melancholy power 
to resist, to shake off the holy influences, to 
harden himself, to remain unconverted. Un- 
der and through the divine influences at work 
on him, he can cease resisting, he can yield. 
Not by his own power, but with the power 
given by the Word he can repent, he can be- 
lieve, he can become converted. 

How clear it all becomes when we under- 
stand and accept the old Bible doctrine, that 


_“ Grace comes through the Means of Grace. 


This precious doctrine gives all the glory to 


CONVERSION ai 


God, while it throws all the responsibilty on 
man. 

Before we leave the subject of Conversion 
it will he helpful to note some of the varied 
phenomena and experiences incident to this 
change. 1 Cor. 12.6. “There are diversities 
of operations, but it is the same God which 
worketh all in all.” All adults who are in 
an unregenerate, or an unconverted state must 
be converted. In all conversions the Holy 
Spirit uses Means. The process, however, 
is not the same in all. Methods vary and sub- 
jective experiments differ, even as the people 
to be converted differ from one another. They 
are constitutionally different from one another. 
They differ in heredity. They have been in- 
fluenced by differing environments. ‘Their 
bodily health varies. ‘Their nervous systems 
are far from alike. ‘The nerves work differ- 
ently in different individuals. ‘The nerves 
are affected by the condition of the vital or- 
gans. The nerves affect the mental machin- 
ery and its working. ‘Temperaments differ. 
Temperaments are affected by states and de- 
grees of health. Temperaments modify abili- 
ty, mental capacity, mental operation. Minds 
differ. It is a psychical and a psychological 
impossibility for all minds to see and under- 


214 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


stand all points alike. Their judgments 
are constituent parts of their constitutional 
make-up. But the mind is always superior 
to the body. 

Necessarily then subjective experiences in 
the process of Conversion cannot all be alike. 
The Holy Spirit knows the human variations. 
He makes allowance for them. He fits Him- 
self into them. With one He must use the 
Word as a hammer to break open the stony 
heart. With another He needs to use it as a 
fire to burn out the accumulations of dross 
and corruption. Into another heart He makes 
the Word drop as the rain and distil as the 
dew. A heathen jailor needs an earthquake 
to make him think and listen to the saving 
Word. A stubborn, self-righteous Paul, full 
of fanatical zeal to destroy the infant Church, 
needs to be knocked down and made blind. 
A black eunuch needs only to have the Word 
he is so earnestly studying opened and ex- 
plained by an authorized minister of Jesus 
Christ. A gentle, thoughtful, Lydia, at a 
woman’s prayer meeting, under the search- 
ing preaching of Paul and Silas, has her heart 
opened like the rosebud that opens under the 
softening rain and the warming sun of the 
early summer. 


CONVERSION 215 


Here is a man of phlegmatic temperament. 
His mind is sluggish. It works slowly. He 
is rarely excited. His feelings are unrespon- 
sive. His disposition is cool and calculating. 
He moves cautiously and deliberately. He 
wants to feel the ground before he takes a step. 
He is hard to move. ‘There are many of him. 

When the Word comes to such an one, it 
does not, as a rule, revolutionize him at once. 
He hears, he thinks, he weighs, he takes it 
home, he ponders, he wants to hear more. 
Gradually, slowly, line upon line, precept 
upon precept, the divine Word comes. The 
seed roots, it sprouts, it grows. The new life 
shows first the blade, then the ear, then the 
full corn in the ear. He has been converted 
gradually and almost imperceptibly. 

Here is another prospect. He has a san- 
-guine temperament. He is impulsive, easily 
aroused, ready to jump at conclusions. 

When the Word comes to him he is likely 
either wilfully to resist and oppose or to 
drink it in with avidity. Asa flash the truth 
may open up to him his sin, his guilt, his 
need. He is likely to have a deep experience 
of contrition. When Christ’s love and atone- 
ment for guilty sinners are clearly and warm- 
ly presented, he is likely to lay hold of the 


216 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


hope set before him and to make a complete 
surrender at once. He is quickly, often sud- 
denly converted. He will always know when 
and how he was converted. But his conver- 
sion is no more real than that of the former 
one. Indeed it may be, and often is, less real 
and less lasting. 

The experience may also be influenced by 
the former life of the convert. 

Here is one who has wandered far away 
from his Father’s house. He has been walk- 
ing in the counsel of the ungodly, standing 
in the way of sinners, sitting in the seat of the 
scornful. Among boon campanions in sin 
he has been spending years in that waste, wild 
world where God is not. Such an one is 
arrested in his mad career. He hears the 
Word. It shows him all his heart and all his 
sin. He comes to himself. He thinks. He 
feels, feels deeply his guilt and his shame. 
He sees the Cross, he grasps it, and the bur- 
den of his guilt rolls away. Peace flows in 
like a river. He is converted. The sharp 
contrast between what he was and what he is 
makes his a clearly marked conversion. He 


also will always know the when and the how. 
Another may nothave wandered so faraway. 


Baptized in infancy, brought up under the in- 


CONVERSION 217 


struction, the restraints and the constraints of 
religion, keeping up perhaps some of the out- 
ward observances of religion, he has never- 
theless not consciously and deliberately sur- 
rendered himself to Christ. Though out- 
wardly respectable, he is not inwardly a Chris- 
tian. He is in an unconverted state. When 
such an one comes to the Word, is awakened 
and comes to himself, his penitence may not 
be so marked and his faith may not be so glad 
as that of the former. But his conversion is 
not less true. 

So conversions differ. They vary in inten- 
sity, in depth of feeling, in duration of pro- 
cess. With many the process is long drawn 
out. The Word stirs a feeling of dissatisfac- 
tion with self. It wakes a longing for a bet- 
ter self. It implants consciousness of sinful- 
ness, feelings of guilt, self-condemnation, 
longing for pardon and peace. By and by, 
perhaps after weeks of thinking, wavering, 
feeling, and indecision, the will acts and says: 
I will arise and go to my Father, and I will 
say, Father I am not worthy. There was a 
decisive moment, but he does not know when 


or where it was. But he is converted. There 
are gradual conversions and there are sudden 


conversions. The former cannot always point 


218 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


to time and place. It is wrong, it is unscrip- 
tural, to make this a test. 

Zacchaeus, Saul of Tarsus, the Philippian 
jailor, and the three thousand of the Day of 
Pentecost, could doubtless all tell the time and 
place; but could all the apostles of Jesus tell? 

A more important question is: Can and 
should every one know whether he is now in 
a converted state? Here there should be no 
uncertainty. Let the inquirer honestly and 
earnestly look into his own heart: How do 
his sins affect hime Do they grieve him? 
Does he hate them? Does he earnestly and 
constantly long for deliverance? Does he 
daily turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness? 
If so, then the elements of the new life are 
there. He is in a converted state. 

But if his sins do not trouble him, if he 
can snap his fingers and laugh at them, if they 
do not daily drive him to the cross, then he is 
not converted. 

Let him come to himself. Let him prayer- 
fully read and ponder the fifty-first Psalm. 
In his closet and in the church let him repent 
and confess and fly to the Lord Jesus for 
refuge and help. He cannot live and die in 
an unconverted state and be saved. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Sanctification or Growth in Holiness 


HE believer is justified. He is freed from 
the threatenings and curses of the Law. 
Justification was declared at the time when 
the new life was started. The new life 
is a spiritual life. It is a life from God, a life 
toward God, a life in God. It is godliness, 
and godliness means God-likeness. As the liv- 
ing plant stretches and reaches toward the sun, 
so the newborn believer reaches out toward 
God and follows Him. The new life in its es- 
sence is holy. It follows after holiness. It 
thinks on, follows after, strives for, ‘“whatso- 
ever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report.” 

But the believer is not perfect. He is not 
sinless. He is in process of being sanctified. 
But his sanctification is not perfect. It would 
certainly be a rare saint or sanctified one, who 
would measure himself with that experi- 


219 


220 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


enced, purified saint who labored more than 
all other Apostles, suffered more, achieved 
more, was exalted more, could say, and “For 
me to live is Christ.” But Paul never claimed 
sinless perfection. Read again his wailing 
confession in Romans 7; hear him in Phil. 
3. 12-14: “Not as though I had already at- 
tained, either were already perfect; but I fol- 
low after, if that I may apprehend that for 
which also I am apprehended of Christ 
Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have 
apprehended; but this one thing I do, forget- 
ting those things which are behind, and reach- 
ing forth unto those things which are before, 
I press toward the mark for the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 

The old Adam was not dead in Paul. The 
flesh was warring against the spirit and the 
spirit against the flesh. Paul was conscious 
of this inner warfare. The lusting and striv- 
ing and fighting of the flesh against the spirit 
grieved him, pained him, and made him con- 
stantly cry for deliverance. And this, indeed, 
is a sure and safe test by which every one can 
know whether Christ is in him, and whether 
he is in Christ and in the way of Sanctifica- 
tion. How do his sins affect hime If he is 
unconscious of the sin that dwells in him, or 


SANCTIFICATION 221 


if he can laugh at his sins, snap his fingers 
and say, “I don’t care,” and go gaily on sin- 
ning, then he is still in the gall of bitterness, 
in the bond of iniquity, carnal, sold under 
sin. But if his sins trouble him, rob him of 
peace, grieve him, and make him hate them 
and mourn over them; if they make him long 
for deliverance, pardon, and peace; if thus 
the old Adam is daily drowned by daily sor- 
row and repentance, then he is a child of 
Grace and in the way of Sanctification. 

It is helpful to bear in mind that there are 
two kinds of sins: ‘The unregenerate, the im- 
penitent, the unbelievers, or those who have 
fallen from Grace, constantly sin, live in sin 
and don’t care if they do. Even when sinful 
things and sinful doings are pointed out and 
they are warned against them, they don’t care, 
but go right on in these sins. Their sins are 
sins of malice. They sin wilfully. They 
often defy God, sin of set purpose, and say, 
“Let us break His bands asunder and cast 
away His cords from us.” “We will not have 
this man to reign over us.” Such wilful sins, 
such sins of malice, the believer cannot com- 
mit. 

There are also sins of weakness. In un- 
wary moments the old Adam asserts himself, 


222 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


the law of the flesh asserts itself, and the be- 
liever falls. Caught off his guard when he 
is not watching and praying, he succumbs and 
sins. The flesh, the deceitful heart, over- 
come the drowsy spirit, and the law of sin 
prevails. Sudden fear of danger may over- 
come a disciple, as when Peter denied His 
Lord. Even after his bitter sorrow and true 
repentance he again “dissembled” and acted 
the hypocrite at Antioch. Paul had a bitter 
contention or quarrel with Barnabas. So Job 
and David and Hezekiah and many Old Tes- 
tament saints had sinned. So great and good 
men and women have often fallen into sins 
of weakness. But they always repent, con- 
fess, and strive anew against sin and after 
more holiness. Their sins are sins of weak- 
ness. 

They still need the Law. In so far as they 
sin they need its pedagogic use to give them 
a clear knowledge of their own sins and to 
drive them to daily sorrow and repentance. 
They need also its didactic use. The Law is 
the expression of God’s holy will. They want 
to know, want to be constantly reminded 
what that holy, good, and gracious will of ° 
God is in order that they may follow it more 
closely. In their inner life they delight to do 


SANCTIFICATION 223 


God’s will. ‘The Law of the Spirit constrains 
them to want to do the will of their Father 
in heaven. And so, through much weakness 
and fear and imperfection and sin, they still 
trustingly press forward in the way of Sancti- 
fication. Their motive power is grateful love. 
They want to be good, they want to do good, 
not because they must, not because they are 
driven from without, but because they are 
contrained from within. ‘The love of Christ 
contraineth” them. 

Free from the Law, they never allow their 
freedom to be a cause of confusing or offend- 
ing a weaker brother. They never forget 
that while, in the good sense, all things are 
lawful unto them, yet all things are not ex- 
pedient. They contend not so much for 
liberty, for rights, as that they may not offend 
one of the least of these for whom Christ died. 
The law of love waives rights, performs du- 
ties, and goes the second mile. 

This is Sanctification. This is growth in 
holiness. It is not a single act, not a sudden 
achievement, not a momentary experience. 
It is a process, a progress, a constant going 
forward, a growing, an increasing, an abound- 
ing yet more and more. It is a Pilgrim’s 
Progress from the City of Destruction to the 


224 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Sinless Canaan. Life is a growth. The pil- 
grim grows while he lives and travels and 
struggles and serves. 

Like a plant that grows from a seed-corn, 
so is the new life in the soul. With the plant, 
life is a small, faint, feeble beginning. So it 
is with the Christian life. Its seed is the Word 
of God. In baptism it is the Word connected 
with the water. The Word implants and 
starts the life. This life, too, is germinal, 
feeble, small in its beginnings. Plant life, in 
its beginnings, grows, man knows not how. 
Gradually, imperceptibly, there comes the 
germ, the tiny blade, the stalk, the ear, the full 
corn. So is it also in the Kingdom of God. 

By a change of figure, the beginning of new 
life is birth. A birth presents a feeble, help- 
less life, a babe. A plant needs nourishment. 
Its first nourishment is drawn out of the same 
seed that started the life. In the Kingdom of 
Grace the Word starts the life and the Word 
must nourish, strengthen, and build up the 
life. “Desire the sincere milk of the word 
that ye may grow thereby.” Of the impera- 
tive need of feeding diligently, daily, careful- 
ly on the Word, we have previously spoken. 
Lack of feeding on and living on the Word 
accounts for the weak, sickly, worldly, cold, 


SANCTIFICATION 225 


do-less and joyless spiritual life in so many 
Christians today. Plant life needs to be 
watched, tended, cultivated, fenced about, and 
safeguarded in every possible way. So does 
the spiritual life. 

A spiritual life cannot be healthy and vig- 
orous in a worldly atmosphere. Irreverent, 
scoffing, unclean, profane, and godless com- 
panions blight, chill, and kill the spiritual 
life. The card-table, the pool-room, the dance 
hall and the drink den have poisoned thou- 
sands of souls. It is a serious signal of soul- 
danger when any one can feel at home in such 
an unchristian and antichristian atmosphere. 
We must be in the world, but not of the world. 
Our garments must remain unspotted from 
the world. “Love not the world, neither the 
things that are in the world. If any man love 
the world, the love of the Father is not in 
Nite, tal Nee 15 (Ot Ly ive ye 

Lov help, \.to-anourishs:; tov.refresh’ to 
strengthen, to safeguard those who walk in 
the way of Sanctification, our loving Saviour 
has instituted the Means of Grace. Of the 
Word as a Means of Grace we have written 
in a previous chapter. We have seen that it 
is a Means because it is a bearer of the Holy 
Spirit, that He is in it and works through it 


Luth, Fundamentals. 15. 


226 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


wherever and whenever it is rightly used. 
We have also seen that the Word, in and with 
the Sacraments, makes them effective. With- 
out the accompanying Word the Sacraments 
would be invalid and useless. They have been 
called the Sacramental Word. We have 
shown that in infants Baptism starts the new 
life, and that in unbaptized adults the Word 
implants and starts the new life while Baptism 
seals, deepens and confirms the life. 


T he Sacrament of the Altar or Lord’s Supper. 


This precious Means of Grace is given us 
to build up the spiritual life. The Holy 
Communion, therefore, has an important 
place in Sanctification, or growth in holiness. 
When rightly used this holy Sacrament is 
the most blessed privilege of the believer. 
This side of heaven there is no place so near 
to heaven as the Communion Altar. Here the 
blessed Christ who gave Himself for the be- 
liever gives Himself to the believer. Here 
more than anywhere else Christ comes in to 
the believer, sups with him, and he sups with 
Christ. Here the mystical union of the be- 
liever with Christ is most fully realized. 
Here are offered and communicated peculiar 
blessings, heavenly blessings — blessings that 
cannot be obtained, in the same measure, any- 


SANCTIFICATION 227 


where else. This is the believer’s sacramental 
feast, his soul’s most precious comfort, his 
deepest joy. From this feast he goes forth 
with new heart, new hope, new faith, and 
new courage to meet and overcome again an 
unfriendly, a hostile world. In a special 
sense he has been with Jesus on the mount. 
His face shines and his heart glows as he 
girds himself anew and goes in the strength 
of this meat many days. 

To realize these unspeakable blessings the 
believer must understand the meaning of this 
Sacrament and be in the right spiritual frame 
to receive it worthily. 

It is one of the saddening facts of Ameri- 
can church life that in so many quarters the 
Sacraments are so lightly esteemed, so flip- 
pantly neglected, and so carelessly and irrev- 
erently used. Multitudes of would-be Chris- 
tians and church members have never seri- 
ously studied these Sacraments that the 
Church originally received from the hands 
of the Son of God. They think and act as if 
Christ could have instituted and made bind- 
ing on the Church empty, meaningless, and 
useless rites and ceremonies. With such con- 
ceptions of Christ’s Sacraments, what think 
they of Christ? 


228 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Of the Sacrament before us they imagine 
that it is only an ancient ceremony which 
some people like and revere. ‘They tell us 
that it is at best a sign, a symbol, a ceremony 
that reminds the observer of something that 
its Founder did in the dim and distant past. 
It has no objective value. It conveys nothing. 
It may serve as a memorial to stir pious 
thoughts and emotions. There is nothing in 
it except what the communicant brings to it. 

Now we seriously submit: Is this a becom- 
ing attitude for one who believes that the ful- 
ness of the Godhead dwells in Christ and that 
all power is given to Hime Shall my imper- 
fect, sin-blinded reason judge Him, question 
His wisdom and power, or sit in judgment on 
His institutions and declarations? I bear in 
mind who He is that gave to the Church this 
Sacrament. I call to mind the time when He 
instituted it. I recall the scene, the sur- 
roundings, the impending sacrifice. I re- 
member that dark and doleful night, the up- 
per room, the company, the footwashing, the 
paschal meal, the table-talk, the surpassing 
climax in the institution of this Sacrament. 
I read over that other-worldly, high-priestly 
prayer, the silent walk to Gethsemane, the 
struggle, the bloody sweat, the vicarious suf- 


SANCTIFICATION 229 


fering, the insults and ignominy of the six 
trials, the scourge, the thorn-crown, the cross. 
In the very shadow of this vicarious Atone- 
ment He instituted for me this holy Sacra- 
ment! I bow, I am silent, I worship, I adore, 
I accept His last Will and Testament. I 
take His words as He gave them. I dare 
not make His testamentary words figurative, 
but, as Queen Elizabeth put it: 


“Just as my Lord did make it, 
So I believe and take it.” 


So says every true believer. He shrinks 
from changing Christ’s words. He dare not 
say “signifies” or “represents” where the Lord 
says “is.” He knows that, a generation after 
the institution, the inspired Paul explains the 
_words of institution in 1 Cor. 10. 16 thus: 

‘The cup of blessings which we bless, is it not 
the communion of the blood of Christ? The 
bread which we break, is it not the commun- 
ion of the body of Christe” It takes two 
things to make a communion, and both must 
be present. Bread and body must be present. 
Wine and blood must be present; otherwise 
there can be no communion. In the following 
chapter, Paul denounces the irregularities, 
the faults, and abuses prevalent in his Corin- 


230 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


thian congregation, and also instructs his 
members on worthy and unworthy commun- 
ing. He takes the real presence of Christ’s 
body and blood for granted all through the 
chapter. In verse 27 he says: “Whosoever 
shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the 
Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body 
and blood of the Lord.” Verse 29, “For he 
that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth 
and drinketh damnation to himself, not dis- 
cerning the Lord’s body.” 

On the basis of these and other passages 
that bear directly on this subject our Church 
believes in the Real Presence of the glorified 
body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. 
She does not believe that the bread is tran- 
substantiated, or changed, into flesh, or that 
the wine is changed into blood. Neither does 
she believe that there is a consubstantiation, 
or physical mixture, of bread and flesh or of 
wine and blood. She believes that the com- 
municant receives plain, natural bread and 
wine, but that these earthly elements convey 
to him the glorified body and blood of Christ. 
The earthly elements convey the heavenly 
food. Both are administered and both are re- 
ceived. This real presence is taught in Lu- 
ther’s Small Catechism, in the Augsburg Con- 


SANCTIFICATION 231 


fession, in the other Lutheran creeds, and by 
all true Lutheran theologians. ‘This teaching 
is different from that of Reformed Cate- 
chisms, creds, and theologies. We Luther- 
ans count our doctrine of the Sacraments 
among our Fundamentals. Should there be 
any risk of being mistaken here, our Church 
would rather run that risk by taking her 
Master at His Word than by changing His 
Word. She would rather believe too much 
than too little. She would rather trust Him 
too far than not far enough.* 

With this view of the Holy Supper it is 
readily seen how its consideration fits into, and 
indeed is a part of, the Way of Sanctification. 
And so we come and sing: 


“Lord at thy table I behold 
The wonders of Thy Grace; 
But most of all admire that I 
Should find a welcome place. 


I that am all defiled by sin: 
A rebel to my God; 

I that have crucified the Son 
And trampled on His blood! 


What strange surpassing Grace is this 
That such a soul finds room; 

My Saviour takes me by the Land 
And kindly bids me come!” 


*For a fuller discussion of this important subject, see chap- 
ters 13—16 in “The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church.” 


232 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Fitness for Communion 


Our exalted conception of the meaning of 
the Sacramental Feast implies and demands 
a special spirit of reverent appreciation in the 
communicant. With a firm and intelligent 
conviction of the spiritual realism that in- 
heres in the Holy Communion, as set forth in 
all that the Scriptures say on the subject, what 
manner of persons should we be when we ap- 
proach what is not man’s, nor our, but the 
Lord’s, table? If we were going up to this 
table to receive bread and wine only, then 
special fitness would not seem so necessary. If 
it were no more than a natural eating and 
drinking of a natural meal and thinking holy 
thoughts during the partaking; if it were a 
mere memorial meal; if bread and wine mere- 
ly represented or symbolized something that 
is not present; then we should not be moved 
to insist so earnestly on a heart-searching pre- 
paring for the feast. Then we might throw 
the table wide upon and invite everyone to 
come, on the spur of the moment, on a sudden 
impulse, without any previous special prep- 
aration, and eat and drink with us; then we 
might make of it a Christian social meal; yes, 
then we might pass the bread and cup up and 


SANCTIFICATION 233 


down the aisles into every pew and invite all 
to eat and dring with us. 

The writer’s spiritual sense has been 
shocked by seeing such things done. Without 
even a word of consecration he has seen and 
heard the minister request women to thus pass 
the bread and wine. 

But if everything that the Word of God 
says on the subject has convinced us that our 
blessed Saviour, the God-man, Christ Jesus, 
is really present and really gives to us, with 
the bread and wine, His own spiritual, glori- 
fied body and blood, then we stand in awe and 
worship. Yes, then we see the fitness of heart- 
searching self-examination, of first sitting in 
judgment on ourselves, of bewaring of un- 
worthy participation, of eating and drinking 
judgment upon ourselves. Every Lutheran 
minister, who is a true spiritual guide, a real 
shepherd of his sheep and lambs, instructs and 
insists on all this in his catechetical classes, in 
his sermons, and in his preaching from house 
to house. His Church also, in conformity to 
her doctrine, has made special provision for 
the proper preparation of those who purpose 
to come to the Holy Communion. The Augs- 
burg Confession says (Article 25): “It is 
not usual to communicate the body of our 


234 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Lord except to those who have been previous- 
ly examined and absolved.” 

Back in the sixteenth century, the official 
Church Orders, or Disciplines, as we would 
call them, required that everyone who wishes 
to receive the Sacrament shall personally give 
notice of his wish to the pastor, who may then 
discover whether he needs special instruction, 
or comfort him with the absolution or as- 
surance of God’s forgiveness. The normal 
method was to have a service in the Church 
on the Saturday afternoon before the Com- 
munion. After this service every commun- 
icant came privately to the minister. This 
was called private confession. It was intended 
to help the communicant to examine himself 
and so to eat of that bread and drink of that 
cup. Surely there is nothing unscriptural or 
unevangelical in this old pastoral custom. 
Think of the advantage to the pastor, in his 
care of the individual soul, if he could thus 
have a private and confidential interview, a 
heart to heart talk with every communicant on 
his spiritual state, his temptations, perplex- 
ities, doubts, sins, and sorrows, before every 
communion. How it would help the pastor 
to fit in the needed instruction, warning, re- 
proof, encouragement, and consolation. Nat- 


SANCTIFICATION 235 


urally such soul-cure requires ideal ministers 
of the New Testament and also that perfect 
confidence. and love by his parishioners set 
forth in the Parable of the Good Shepherd 
and His Sheep. What a wonderful help such 
a relation would be toward growing in grace 
and in spiritual knowledge and in walking in 
the way of Sanctification. 

Where the good, old-fashioned custom of 
such ideal private confession has fallen into 
disuse the pastor can substitute a true, soul- 
curing pastoral visit. ‘The spiritual pastor, 
who is a true under-shepherd, will want to 
know all his sheep, every sheep and every 
lamb. He realizes that he must give heed to 
all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has 
made him overseer. Especially before every 
communion he will want a private, personal 
interview with his weak, careless, worldly, 
endangered members. Those who need him 
most will get the most of his attention. He 
will remind them of the meaning of the Lord’s 
Supper, show them how much they need it, 
and how it will nourish and build up those 
who rightly use it and so forward them in 
their growth in holiness. Yes, ‘This Sacra- 
ment hath been instituted for the special com- 
fort and strengthening of those who humbly 


236 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


confess their sins and who hunger and thirst 
after righteousness.” 

Special preparation for special seasons of 
grace is God’s order. Israel of old had such 
seasons of preparation before special manifes- 
tations from God; e. g., before the giving of 
the Law, the sending of quails and manna, the 
crossing of the Jordan, the great festivals. 
Jesus had a most solemn preparatory service 
with His disciples before He instituted the 
Last Supper. He moved them to self-exam- 
ination. He showed them their sins of pride 
and jealousy, rebuked their quarrels, warned 
them of their defection, of Peter’s fall and 
Judas’ treachery. What a preparatory ser- 
mon! He also had special words of sweet 
comfort and promise, and prayed that other- 
worldly, high-priestly prayer. Here is an 
example of what a public preparatory service 
should be, in order that the communion may 
be the heavenly feast it ought to be and give 
the needed strength to walk in the way of 
sanctification. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Prayer and Sanctification 


W: HAVE shown above that the Word is 
the principal Means of Grace. We have 
also shown that the place which it bears de- 
mands a receptive mind and heart. The Word, 
whether the written, spoken, pondered, or Sac- 
ramental Word, if its full precious blessing is 
to be experienced, must be used in a prayerful 
spirit. Word and prayer belong together. 
The prayerless reader of the Word misses the 
personal and experimental blessing. He who 
prays without relating his prayer to the Word 
does not pray aright. He misses the real com- 
fort and blessing of prayer. 

In the Word God speaks to me. I should 
always study it with a devout, earnest, and 
reverent mind. What do these words that I 
am reading mean for me? Again and again 
I find that they find me. They fit me as if 
they had been written especially to me and for 
me. I am moved to pause, to send up an 
earnest, ejaculatory prayer that God may help 


237 


238 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


me through His Word to take it to heart, to 
profit by it, to grow more and more into what 
I ought to be. And so I unite my prayer with 
holy contemplation. God has spoken to me. 
In my prayer I answer back to Him. He has 
promised; in my prayer I rest on, I claim, the 
promise. 

From this we see that, in the proper sense, 
prayer is nota Means of Grace. In the Word 
God speaks to me. He proffers and conveys 
Grace, renewing Grace, nourishing Grace, 
strengthening Grace, comforting and uplifting 
Grace. Every spiritual Grace, every real 
good,isfromabove. He is the Giver of every 
good and perfect gift. He promises and gives 
through the Word. My prayer asks for, and 
thanks for God’s gift. Grace comes down. 
Prayer goes up. God promises. I take Him 
at His Word. He gives, I receive. The 
child is hungry, he asks for, or prays for, a 
piece of bread. The mother hears, she gives 
the bread. The child eats and is satisfied. It 
was not the asking or praying that stilled the 
hunger. It was the bread. Prayer asks for 
Grace. God gives Grace through His own 
Means. Clear thinking distinguishes between 
asking for, conveying, and receiving. Clear 
thinking prevents me from making my word 


PRAYER 239 


to God equal with, or more important than, 
God’s Word to me. My word cannot convey 
Grace. God’s can. My word enables me to 
receive and use the Grace that God gives. 

God wants me to pray. He holds out the 
richest and most precious promises to those 
who pray and pray aright. Without prayer 
there can be no true spiritual life. The true 
Christian feels that he must pray. Even the 
natural man who has not quenched his better 
nature prays. Of all earthly creatures man 
alone prays. Every man has within him an 
impulse to pray. In times of sudden distress 
or danger the infidel tries to pray. The child 
loves to pray before he knows what it means. 
The sick, the sorrowing, the lonely, the dying, 
want to pray. Heathen pray. We come across 
it among the civilized and the barbarous. We 
have seen above that the heathen, without a 


Bible or a missionary, know that there is some 
kind of a God or supreme power above them, 


that there is something in or about themselves 
that offends their god or gods; that they must 
do something to propitiate these higher pow- 
ers; that if they do not get right with their 
gods there will be retribution beyond the 
grave. These innate truths make man a wor- 
shiping being. The lower animals cannot 


240 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


worship. They cannot be evoluted into crea- 
tures that pray. Man alone prays. The ancient 
heathen prayed morning, noon, and night, and 
at meals. Millions of them do so to-day. 
Great festivals and great undertakings, wars, 
battles, congresses were and are preceded by 
official sacrifices and prayers. Heathen na- 
tions, peoples, religions and their individual 
followers in their habits of devotion and sac- 
rifice put to shame Christian nations and their 
people. They even put to shame thousands of 
professing Christians. If prayer is the pulse 
beat of the Christian life, oh how sickly, how 
feeble the life of most of our Christians! 
True prayer is a conversation of a penitent 
and believing heart with God. He who knows 
nothing of heartfelt penitence for sin, who 
does not trust in Christ alone for forgiveness 
and acceptance with God cannot offer accept- 
able and prevailing prayer. “If I regard in- 
iquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” 
Ps. 66. 18. Also Prov. 28. 9, “He that turn- 
eth away his ear from hearing the law, even 
his prayer shall be abomination.” Is. 1. 15-17, 
‘‘And when ye spread forth your hands I will 
hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make 
many prayers, I will not hear you: your hands 
are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; 


PRAYER 241 


put away the evil of your doings from before 
mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well.” 
Jn. 9. 31, “We know that God heareth not 
sinners; but if any man be a worshiper of God 
and his will, him He heareth.” Only he who 
is in a converted state or is in the way to con- 
version can truly pray. 

True prayer may be read from a book, 
repeated from memory, or spoken in one’s 
own words. If only the confessions, the peti- 
tions, the thanksgivings express the feeling of 
the heart, then the form is of no vital impor- 
tance. “The Lord looketh on the heart.” The 
words may be spoken aloud or they may be 
the silent expressions of the heart. If sincere 
and earnest, God knows and notes and hears. 
Groanings that cannot be uttered are often 
most acceptable to God. Prayer may be of- 
fered in a standing, sitting, or kneeling pos- 
ture, also lying on a bed. The heart must be 
in it always. 


Mistakes about Prayer. 


Many such are afloat. They confuse many 
sincere souls. They unsettle the faith of many. 
They breed doubt, skepticism, and unbelief. 
How important to be clear on the Bible teach- 
ing of prayer! How necessary to know the 


Luth, Fundamentals. 16, 


242 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


conditions and limitations that God lays 
down! 

Here again we need to recall some of the 
simple, sane, and safe principles of interpre- 
tation: Every passage of Scripture is to be 
studied in connection with what goes before 
and what follows after. It is to be compared 
with other passages that bear on the same 
subject. ‘The dark and difficult passages are 
to be explained by the passages that are clear 
and easily understood. A doctrine or teach- 
ing dare not be drawn from, or built on, a 
single, isolated text. We should always search 
the whole Scripture, endeavor to find all the 
passages that bear on the subject, carefully 
examine and compare them with each other, 
and then draw our conclusion from their com- 
bined teaching. 

After studying the subject of prayer with 
these simple principles in mind, we find that 
God does not promise to answer all prayers. 
See Jas. 4. 3, “Ye ask and receive not, because 
ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon 
your lusts,” or selfish pleasures. 1 Jn. 5. 14, 
“Tf we ask anything according to his will, he 
heareth us.”’ God does not answer a selfish 
prayer. God does not answer the prayer of 
one who boasts of his own power with God 


PRAYER 243 


and loves to publish and recount before others 
how God has healed, has regulated the weath- 
er, stilled a storm, or sent money in answer to 
his own all-prevailing prayer. Humility is 
a most becoming grace in him who prays. 
In self-defense Paul on several occasions felt 
himself “compelled” to self-glory, but in deep 
humility, he adds (2 Cor. 12. 11-13), “I am 
become a fool in glorying ... Forgive me 
this wrong.” 

Again God has not promised to hear a 
prayer that asks Him to depart from His 
own plan and purpose. If He has shown us 
that it is His will that His salvation shall be 
brought to man by man, no one has a right 
to request Him to bring it or take it in some 
other way. It is ours to do our part that the 
right man may go and, in the right way, offer 
salvation to the other man. Then we pray 
for God’s blessing on His own means and 
methods. 

Again we must remember that God will not 
force His salvation on anyone. The wilful, 
defiant blesphemer cannot be converted, ex- 
cept through God’s means and in God’s way. 
He may have gone so far that God has given 
him up. We must be careful that we do not 
dictate to God. 


244 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Some years ago the whole Christian En- 
deavor world, the flower of the Christian 
youth of the Reformed churches, was on its 
knees praying God to convert Robert Inger- 
soll. This praying was published to the world. 
Ingersoll went on defying and blaspheming 
God. Who can ever count the multitudes of 
skeptics that were made by that mistaken idea 
and method of prayer? God has His own 
wise way. We must do the Lord’s work in 
the Lord’s way and expect Him to do it in 
His way. 

In praying we must also distinguish be- 
tween that which is temporal and that which 
is spiritual. 

When we really desire greater spiritual 
blessings, larger measures of Grace, a more 
perfect righteousness, a deeper spiritual life, 
a closer walk with God, more growth in holi- 
ness, then we may be sure that our desires and 
our aspirations are in harmony with God’s 
will concerning us. Then God’s encourage- 
ment is, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will 
fill it.” Then we know that “this is the will 
of God, even your sanctification.” Then we 
may pray without condition and with full 
assurance of faith that He will answer. In 
spiritual things God is always ready and will- 


PRAYER 245 


ing to give more than we can ask or think. 
There is here no limitation but the limitation 
of our heart’s desire. In our desire, however, 
we must always count the cost, the self-denial, 
the cross-bearing, the sacrifice, and the suffer- 
ing that such advance in sanctification may 
entail. 

But when we desire temporal gifts, earthly 
gifts, the good things of this life, the things 
that would bring us more worldly comfort, 
ease and pleasure, even though it be health or- 
life for self or for some loved one, then we 
cannot always be sure that our desires are 
God’s will concerning us. Then we must re- 
member that He is the Allwise Father, that 
He can see farther, that He knows better than 
we, poor, weak, shortsighted, ignorant and im- 
pulsive children. Just as loving but wise 
parents often inflict on their beloved children 
what these do not want and even what they 
abhor, and often withhold from them what 
they intensely desire and beg for, because 
they know better than the children what is 
good for them and love them too much to 
gratify their own, unwise desires, so our heav- 
enly Father deals with us, His erring children. 
As good children we must learn to make all 
earthly requests conditional. We must learn to 


246 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


say, “Thy will be done,” and in our Father’s 
refusal we must see His answer of love. 

What serious mistakes are often made on 
this point! Luther doubtless made such a mis- 
take when he practically demanded that God 
must make the dying Melanchthon well. God 
yielded to Luther’s demand and Melanchton, 
it might seem, lived to hinder the Reforma- 
tion, to bring in bitter controversy and divi- 
sion, and to plague the Evangelical Church. 
This is the writer’s private judgment. It may 
be wrong. Paul had a thorn in the flesh,— 
we do not know what it was. We do know 
that it was some ailment in the body, “in the 
flesh.”” He besought the Lord three times to 
remove the thorn. It remained. It was bet- 
ter for Paul that it should remain. Yet God 
answered Paul’s repeated earnest prayers. 
God gave him something better than the re- 
moval of the thorn. He gave him Grace to 
bear it. Many a saint has been thus per- 
fected through suffering. 

Yes, we may pray for healing, for earthly 
goods and gifts. Jesus taught us to pray for 
daily bread. But His Holy Spirit also in- 
spired Paul to say: “If any will not work, 
neither let him eat.” 2 Th. 3. 10. In answer 
to prayer God has raised up many a one whom 


PRAYER 247 


the doctors didn’t cure. But He does not cure 
all who are prayed for, else we might pray 
disease out of the world. We must say, ‘Thy 
will be done.” 

In all our praying for earthly good we must 
always use the means within our reach. The 
present is a dispensation of means. For heal- 
ing we need to use the recognized medical 
profession. We need scientifically trained and 
recognized doctors and the drugs they pre- 
scribe. Elijah, Hezekiah, Paul, James, and 
Jesus used means. ‘Then we should pray, 
pray earnestly, pray with strong crying and 
tears, pray continuously that God may bless 
the physician’s skill and remedies and always 
say, “Thy will be done.” 

Lord teach us to pray! ‘Teach us to pray 
as Thou wouldst have us pray! 

How does our Lord want us to pray? 

First: Our whole heart and soul must be 
in every prayer. We must realize and con- 
sciously feel our sinfulness, our guilt, our own 
helplessness, our need of help from above. 
“God be merciful to me, the sinful one,” must 
ever be our cry. Every day we are in touch 
with a hostile world, surrounded by foes, en- 
dangered by temptations. Every day we are 
stained with sin, and our thoughts, words, 


248 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


and deeds are more or less defiled. We leave 
undone what we ought to do. We do what 
we should not do. The world, the flesh, and 
the devil get in their work on us. How weak 
we are! How far from perfection! How 
much our growth in holiness is hindered! 
How slow our progress in the way of sanctifi- 
cation! How infrequent and imperfect our 
praying! 

Second: We must learn more and more, by 
self-discipline, by watching self, by studying 
the Word, to know God’s will and submit to 
that Will. More and more we must realize 
that the good is conformity to God’s will. 
More and more we must realize that our sanc- 
tification is God’s will concerning us, that He 
desires us to be holy. He desires that we seek 
His kingdom first. An old saint has said that 
to lay ones own broken will at the feet of the 
Lord is the hardest lesson for the human heart 
to learn. What saint has not experienced the 
truth of this? In Bible language the word 
heart includes the will. A broken heart im- 
plies a broken will. A contrite heart is a con- 
trite will. Heart contains will. Heart is feel- 
ing and will. A true heart contains a submis- 
sive will—a will that cheerfully bows to God’s 
will. Such a submissive heart and will can 


PRAYER 249 


offer the fervent, effectual prayer of the right- 
eous man, the man who is advancing in sanc- 
tification. | 

Third: Such prayer will be offered in the 
name of Jesus Christ. But it must be the true 
Christ, the whole Christ, the God-man who 
offered for me a full, vicarious atonement, 
my vicar, my substitute, my ransom from sin. 
Through this Christ—the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life—I come to the Father. He has 
promised: ‘‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the 
Father in my name, he will give it you.” 
Jnrel6. 423) 

A lodge prayer offered to a “Supreme Be- 
ing” an “Architect of the Universe” without 
even a mention of Jesus, without penitence 
for, and confession of, sin, without flying to 
the Lord Jesus for forgiveness, refuge, and 
help, is a mocking idolatry. 

What 1s it to pray in the name of Jesus? 
The common, off-hand answer generally is 
that to pray in His name means to ask for and 
expect an answer “for His sake.” As far as 
it goes, this answer isnot wrong. If I havea 
realizing sense of who and what I am; if I 
am mindful of who and what God is, I cer- 
tainly cannot expect Him to answer me for 
my own sake. I certainly have no merit. I 


250 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


have not earned God’s favor. He owes noth- 
ing to me. I cannot plead that He should 
hear me for my sake. 

But Jesus is righteous. He has merit in 
the Father’s sight. By faith I have laid hold 
of His righteous merit. My trust, my plea 
is He and He alone. For His sake I pray the 
Father to hear and answer my prayer. This 
is truth, but it is not the whole truth. It 
belongs to praying in Jesus’ name, but it 
comes short of the fulness and preciousness 
included in praying in His name. Many 
Christians never get beyond this partial mean- 
ing and have only a partial blessing. They 
live on a low plane of Christian experience 
and privilege. ‘They can and should mount 
higher. 

Their faith is mingled with fear. They 
are afraid of God, but timidly hope that for 
Jesus’ sake He will turn aside His anger. 
They use the name of Jesus as a sort of a light- 
ning-rod to turn aside the just wrath of God. 
Theirs is a weak faith, but a merciful Father 
accepts it and gives heed to their prayer. 

Dhere: is wa‘ dlarger, a<fuller meaning in 
praying in the name of Jesus. When we come 
to apprehend and appropriate this deeper, 
richer meaning, then we can come with full 


PRAYER 251 


assurance of faith, with faith that worketh 
by love, with love that casteth out fear. Then 
we come “with all confidence and cheerful- 
ness, even as dear children come to a kind and 
loving parent.” 

When I appropriate the full meaning of 
praying in His name, then I consciously real- 
ize that my sin-bearer has become my advo- 
cate with the Father; that He pleads for me; 
that He makes my prayer His own prayer; 
that when the Father hears Him, He hears 
me; that my prayer is His; that to refuse me, 
the Father must refuse His own well-beloved 
Son. And so I come, sprinkled with the blood 
of the New Covenant, that speaketh better 
things than that of Abel, to Jesus, my one Me- 
diator, who is always interceding for me. And 
therefore my fervent prayers avail much. 
What a privilege! What a heritage is mine! 

Such prayers in Jesus’ name are also the 
prayers of the Holy Spirit. Eph. 2. 18. “For 
through him [Christ] we both have access 
by one Spirit unto the Father.” Gal. 4. 6, 
‘“And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth 
the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, 
Abbas sPather!’ +: Roms 8:26 ‘And in sike 
manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity; 
for we know not how to pray as we ought; 


252 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for 
us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” 

Here, then, is my further confidence and 
comfort: when I truly pray in the name of 
Jesus, my prayers, though weak and imper- 
fect on my side, are the prayers of the Holy 
Spirit. With Christ He bears them to the 
Throne of Grace. They cannot fail. 

It goes without saying that when I thus 
pray in Jesus’ name and in the Holy Spirit, I 
cannot utter a selfish prayer. My prayer must 
then bear all the aforenamed characteristics 
of true, Scriptural worship. And as I grow in 
holiness my prayers in Jesus’ name will come 
more and more into harmony with the same 
mind that was also in Christ Jesus. His will 
becomes more and more my will. I am being 
transtormed more and more into His image. 
I follow more and more in His footsteps, and 
as His earthly life was so largely a life of 
prayer, as He ever had the upward look, as He 
ever sought the things that are above, so my 
eyes will be more and more toward heaven, 
His home and my home. I will cultivate, live 
and find joy in, the prayer-life. Though in the 
world, my truest, inner self will not be of the 
world. Diligent in, and true to, my earthly 
calling, even though it be lowly, menial, la- 


PRAYER 253 


borious, and wearisome, I will carry the 
Spirit of Christ into it, and while I am serv- 
ing my fellow man I will be serving the Lord. 
Even in my working hours my soul will have 
the upward look and will live in the spirit of 
prayer. With the eyes of my soul ever toward 
the Lord, I will be so in the spirit of prayer 
that I can at any moment send up a silent pe- 
tition, confession, or thanksgiving. Ready for 
prayer, having the spirit of prayer, sending 
up frequent, momentary prayers, I will be 
living up to the not impossible injunctions of 
Paul to “continue instant in prayer,” to “pray 
without ceasing.” This is the prayer life. 
This should be the ideal, the aim, the effort 
of every Christian. This is growth in holi- 
ness or sanctification. This prayer-life every 
saint should be pressing forward to and striv- 
ing after, day by day. ‘Thus can he more and 
more let the same mind be in him that was 
also in Christ Jesus. ‘Thus will he be leading 
a life in which sin will be more and more 
overcome and in which every Christian grace 
and virtue will flourish. Thus will he be 
learning day by day to serve his fellow men 
and to serve the Lord with gladness. 
Prayer-life is a blessed life. Great and 
good men have always realized the need 


254 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


and the blessing of the practice of prayer. 
Statesmen like Gustavus Adolphus, Glad- 
stone, Washington, Lincoln, and others were 
men of prayer. Soldiers like Havelock, 
Stonewall Jackson, Howard, and Gordon 
prayed during campaign and battle. Jacob, 
David, Daniel, Peter and Paul knew the 
blessing of prayer. Luther fought out the 
battles of the Reformation first on his knees. 
Wesley and Whitefield, Knox, Francke, 
Muhlenberg, Moody, Passavant, and a host 
of missionaries of whom the world was not 
worthy lived the prayer-life. Why the pover- 
ty of great leaders in the Church to-day? 
May it not be because of the paucity of men 
who are instant and mighty in prayer. What’s 
wrong with our Christian colleges and semi- 
naries? Why the deplorable lack of spiritu- 
ality, consecration, and readiness to sacrifice 
and to suffer for the cause of Christ? Is the 
spirit of prayer fostered, appreciated, and ex- 
perienced in the study rooms, the closets, and 
class rooms, so that the students are made to 
feel it and are moved to imitation? Oh the 
blight of professionalism, dead orthodoxism, 
and formalism in our churches and schools! 
The lack of heart-power in pulpit and in 
personal work! Our own Lutheran Church 


PRAYER 255 


needs a revival of sound Pietism in heart, in 
home, in church, and in school. In all of 
these we need a reviving of the prayer-life. 
God help us. 

Again the question recurs: Are prayers 
answered? And again we say: Not all 
prayers, so called, are answered. Prayers 
pressed out of impenitent and unbelieving 
hearts are not answered. Cries of anguish in 
moments of peril from unrenewed hearts are 
not answered. Unbelievers cannot truly pray; 
“How then shall they call on him in whom 
they have not believed?” Rom. 10. 14. To 
this we have referred heretofore. Mistaken 
prayers, prayers based on unscriptural views, 
are not heard. Selfish prayers have no 
promise, some so-called prayers are an abom- 
ination to the Lord. Wrong prayers raise 
doubts and make skeptics. All this has been 
shown above. 

Right prayers, true prayers, prayers in har- 
mony with God’s revealed will are always an- 
swered. When I thus pray, God hears, God 
heeds, God answers. 

Not always in my way. He often knows 
a better way. Like a good father who loves 
his child and because of his deep love often 
withholds what the child craves, so my all- 


256 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


wise, all-good, and loving heavenly Father 
often withholds an earthly good that I crave 
and cry for. But He hears my cry. He an- 
swers me by giving me something better. 
Recall Paul’s thorn in the flesh already re- 
ferred 4to: 

Not always in my time. An earthly father 
often withholds what a son wants and pleads 
to have now. But the father knows that it will 
be better for the son to wait, perhaps many 
years. He refuses not, but delays. God is 
patient. He often delays. In His own good 
time the answer comes. “The Lord is not 
slack concerning His promise, as some men 
count slackness.” 1 Pet. 3.9. Monica prayed 
and waited for thirty years for the conver- 
sion of Augustine, but while she prayed and 
waited she labored with her wayward son in 
God’s way and used God’s Means, and in 
God’s time the answer came. Some true 
prayers will be answered after the petitioner 
has gone to heaven. Every true saint who 
has learned to offer true prayer has experi- 
enced remarkable answers to his prayers. 
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous 
man availeth much.” “Lord, teach us to 


pray.” 


PRAYER 257 


We close this chapter on private, personal 
prayer with a reproduction of 


CHRISTIAN RULES OF PRAYER 
Laid down by Matthesius: 


“To true, Christian, and salutary prayer it 
is requisite: 

1. That a man lift up holy hands, accord- 
ing to 2 Tim. 2, and offer his devotions with 
a good conscience. God heareth not impeni- 
tent sinners, John 9. 

2. That a man pray in every time of trial 
and need. The greater the need, the stronger 
is our prayer. God encourages us to call 
upon Him in the day of trouble. Psalm 50. 

3. That a man pray, cry, and sigh from 
out of the depths of his heart, without hypo- 
crisy, anger, complaint, or doubt, even as 
Moses prayed on the shores of the Red Sea. 
Lip service, in which the heart participates 
not, is a vain service. Mt. 15. 

4. ‘That a man call upon the One true and 
only God, as Christ teaches in John 16 and in 
the Lord’s Prayer. 


5. That a man plead the name, merit, 
blood, death, and intercession of Christ for 


Luth, Fundamentals. 17. 


258 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


help and the support of the Holy Ghost. 
John 14. 

6. That a man pray with all boldness as 
Abraham prayed, Gen. 18; with a strong faith 
like the centurion; without murmuring or 
impatience, continuing instant in prayer, as 
did the woman of Canaan; and with humili- 
ty, as did Daniel, Chapter 9. 

7. He that will thus pray needs first of 
all to believe that he is reconciled to God 
through His Son and must base his plea on 
his baptism and on the blood of Christ, as 
well as on God’s command and promise. He 
must appropriate the promise of Christ, as 
did all the praying saints; and how frequent- 
ly God heard and helped them! 

If prayer is to be rightly offered all these 
things must be well observed and kept: 

1. Holy hands and a good conscience. 
A realizing sense of need. 

A heart free from all hypocrisy. 

Call upon the one, only, and true God. 
Pray in the name of Jesus Christ. 
Pray boldly. 

Pray perseveringly. 


ee eg ee 


Always pray in faith. 


PRAYER 259 


Such prayer makes our joy full; gives help, 
comfort, and a sure defense against all devils 
and evil men.” 


“Lord, teach us how to pray aright, 
With reverence and with fear: 
Though dust and ashes in Thy sight, 
We may, we must draw near. 


Burdened with guilt, convinced of sin, 
In weakness, want and woe, 

Fightings without and fears within, 
Lord, wither shall we go? 


God of all Grace, we come to Thee 
With broken, contrite hearts; 


Give, what Thine eye delights to see, 
Truth in the inward parts. 


Give deep humility; the sense 
Of goodly sorrow give; 

A strong desire, with confidence, 
To hear Thy voice and live. 


Faith in the only Sacrifice 

That can for sin atone; 

To cast our hopes, to fix our eyes, 
On Christ, on Christ alone: 


Give these, and then thy will be done. 
Thus strengthened with all might 
We through Thy Spirit and Thy Son 
Shall pray, and pray aright.” 


CHAPTER XV 


Public Worship in God’s House, and 
Good Works As Aids in Sanctification 


D URING six days in every week the average 
ordinary man is breathing the atmos- 
phere of an unfriendly world. In shop, in 
store, in office, in field or factory, in section 
gang, in yards, in boat or train crew, he is ina 
more or less godless environment. His con- 
tacts, his companions, his fellows, his bcsses, 
his customers are mainly of the earth, earthy. 
What he hears and sees is rarely uplifting. 
Sin, selfishness, sordidness, vileness, and pro- 
fanity touch him at every turn. The tendency 
of all this is to defile him, to harden him, to 
drag him down. The influence, the tendency, 
the temptation is to live as if there were no 
God and no hereafter and as if he had no soul. 
He is in constant danger of becoming low, sor- 
did, brutish. His soul inclines to become dis- 
contented, restless, rebellious. He feels that 
he needs change, diversion, stimulant, excite- 


260 


AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 261 


ment, anything to make him forget himself, 
his lot, his unsatisfied soul. The door is open 
for divers temptations. The world, the flesh, 
and the devil combine to destroy him. The 
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life are ready to allure and ensnare 
him. Evil comrades tempt him. They know 
the power of evil lust. They know how and 
where to get momentary gratification. They 
offer the Lethean draft of oblivion to sorrow. 
Who can measure the temptations of the 
ordinary, every-day man? Does he not need 
our sympathy and help? Yet in it all the 
true Christian can remain true. 

The domestic, home woman is not exposed 
to these temptations as much as is the man. 
Perhaps this accounts, in part, for the fact 
that woman is less inclined to be irreligious. 
But the working woman, especially if she 
works in a group, will encounter much of 
man’s environment and its temptations. 

God knows all this. God is compassionate 
and full of mercy. He knows man’s frame. 
He remembers that he is dust. He provides 
alleviations, comforts, and helps for those 
whose life would otherwise be so drab, so sad, 
s0 monotonous, and so lonely. 

He rescued and preserved for man two 


262 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


blessed institutions from Paradise. One is the 
family. Where the family, the home, is what 
God wants it to be, where there is a church 
in the house, it is a blessed refuge, a rest, a 
comfort, a social joy to the weary worker. It 
is a safeguard against temptation, a divine 
agency to promote sanctification. 

The other remnant from Eden is the Lord’s 
Day. What would the world be without it? 
Think of the grinding monotony of life, un- 
varied, unbroken, one continuous treadmill of 
toil, from sun to sun, from moon to moon, 
from birth till death, without God and with- 
out hope. We shudder to think of it! 

But God is good. From man’s creation, be- 
fore and after the Fall, He provided a blessed 
break and change. He made it frequent. He 
ordained that one day out of every seven 
should be for every man’s bodily rest and spir- 
itual refreshment. On one day a week toil 
should cease, the tools be laid by, the plow 
stand still, the factory be silent, store and of- 
fice, bank and school be closed, so that all 
might have a change, a blessed break, a re- 
freshing rest. Once a week, clean clothes on 
a clean body for a day cleaned of the world’s 
worry and work. 


AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 263 


For this blessed day God has provided spe- 
cial joys, higher joys for man’s higher nature. 
While man’s body rests, his soul is to have fel- 
lowship and communion with God, with His 
saints and angels. 

From the beginning men who were true to 
their own higher nature and true to their God 
had their altars for worship and sacrifice. 
Before God brought His people into their 
own land He showed them how to build a 
tabernacle, which afterwards became a tem- 
ple, a permanent place to worship God and 
to be lifted up and blest. God provided forms 
and times for worship. Special convocations 
and services were provided for their Sab- 
baths, which were high days for the great con- 
gregations. 

Altar and tabernacle and temple forshad- 
owed and typified the Church of Christ. 
From the first Easter forward the followers 
of Christ met together for worship on the first 
day of the week. At first they met in syna- 
gogues, in private houses, and often out of 
doors. Later, on account of persecution, they 
met in secret places, often in the dead of night. 
Always they were in the spirit on the Lord’s 
Day. Always mindful of the divine injunc- 
tion, ‘Not forsaking the assembling of your- 


264 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


selves together, as the manner of some is.” 
Always “speaking one to another in psalms 
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and 
making melody with their heart to the Lord.” 
Eph. 5. 19. Always “teaching and admon- 
ishing one another in psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs, singing with grace in their 
hearts to the Lord.” Always, when a con- 
gregation was assembled, the apostles fol- 
lowed the example of Christ, preached to the 
people and prayed with them. For two cen- 
turies after the apostles groups of Christians 
met and worshiped together in secret places. 
Not until persecution ceased and Constantine 
proclaimed tolerance for Christians, were 
Churches built and worship made free to all. 
But throughout the apostolic days and the 
centuries of persecution, congregational wor- 
ship was regarded as a blessed privilege, pro- 
motive of growth in grace and in the knowl- 
edge of Jesus Christ. 

To us the Lord’s Day always comes with 
the open church door, the Means of Grace 
and the hope of glory. In the congregation in 
which the whole, full Gospel is preached in 
its truth and purity, and in which the sacra- 
ments are administered in conformity to 
Christ’s institution, where God is worshiped 


AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 265 


in spirit and in truth, there Christ meets with 
those who trust and love Him. There the 
world, with its distractions, its sin and its 
selfishness, its worry and its work, is shut out. 
There we are gathered in His name. There 
we sit together in heavenly places. There our 
windows are open toward the new Jerusalem, 
and we are at the gate of heaven. There we 
unload our sins on our Sinbearer. There we 
are in the Communion of Saints, offer the 
prayers of the saints, sing the songs of Zion, 
hear anew the wonderful words of life, and 
partake of the sacraments of Christ. We real- 
ize that it is good to be there. From the heart 
we say, “A day in thy courts is better than a 
thousand.” 

From every such service we go home edi- 
fied, lifted up, refreshed, and strengthened. 
After such a service we can go forth again 
on Monday, rested and refreshed in body, 
with a song in the soul, with new heart and 
new hope, to take up anew the daily burden, 
to face afresh the old foe, to meet again the 
old temptations, and to say, “None of these 
things move me.” ‘Nay in all these things 
we are more than conquerors through him 
that loved us.” Going to God’s House has 
made us better, stronger, and happier. It has 


266 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


furthered our growth in holiness. We are ad- 
vancing in the way of sanctification. 


We close this long discussion on sanctifica- 
tion with a few matter-of-fact and self-evi- 
dent suggestions on good works or personal 
service as related to growth in holiness. 

The Christian who is such by conviction 
and experience, who is daily tasting and see- 
ing that the Lord is good, will want to serve 
Him by serving those whom his Lord re- 
deemed. He will serve the Lord with glad- 
ness. He will be happy in proportion as he can 
imitate his Master in going about and doing 
good. He will want to help to make the world 
better and happier. Wherever he can find 
need, sorrow, suffering, there he will minister 
in His Name. Neglected childhood, endan- 
gered youth, lonely shut-ins, and solitary old 
age will all enlist loving sympathy and kind- 
ly Christlike ministration. He will be soli- 
citous and active in community betterment 
and social uplift. Not like that doubtful 
character, that worldly, selfish, unmoral, 
heathenish woman who wanted to uplift 
“Main Street.” Not like a sour-faced, joy- 
killing Puritan, repelling humans in endeav- 
oring to make men righteous by law. Rather, 


AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 267 


like Christ, fairer than the sons of men, His 
face radiating love, with blessing in His 
heart, blessing on His lips, and blessing in 
His hands. So will the Christian social service 
worker do good unto all men, “Especially un- 
to them who are of the household of faith.” 
All such blessed service is true Inner Mission 
Work. Its motive always is: ‘The love of 
Christ constraineth us.” 2 Cor. 5. 14. Such 
good works, done not that by doing them I 
may merit salvation, but as expressions of 
gratitude because I have been saved; done 
not because I must, but because I want to, be- 
cause I love to do them, am happiest when 
I am doing them. Such works are well pleas- 
ing to God. God notes them, God owns them, 
God rewards them; but His rewards are not 
rewards of merit, but of Grace. 

By doing such good works—‘not by con- 
straint, but willingly” — the Christian gives 
expression to the impressions made on his soul 
by the Holy Spirit. As bodily exercise pro- 
motes the body’s health, so these good works 
are spiritual exercises that promote soul- 
health. The Christian grows stronger by do- 
ing such works of love. They have an im- 
portant place in the way of sanctification. 


268 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


O Thou best Gift of Heaven! 
Thou who Thyself hast given, 
For Thou hast died! 
This hast Thou done for me: 
What have I done for Thee, 

Thou Crucified? 


I long to serve Thee more; 

Reveal an open door, 
Saviour, to me. 

Then counting all but loss, 

I'll glory in Thy cross 
And follow Thee. 


Do Thou but point the way 
And give me strength to obey; 
Thy will be mine. 
Then can I count it joy 
To suffer or to die 
Since Thou are mine. 


Ae eV 
THE PAST THINGS 





CHAPTER XVI 
The Last Things—Death 


HE Christian’s bodily life is limited by 

his short and uncertain earthly ex- 
istence. The teachings and beliefs of his re- 
ligion, however, are not for this life only. 
Dogmatics does not end when it has set forth, 
in systematic order, what the child of God 
ought to know, what he ought to believe, and 
what he ought to be during his earthly pil- 
grimage. Death does not end all. The grave 
is not life’s goal. ‘‘‘Dust thou art, to dust re- 
turnest’, was not spoken of the soul.” The 
Christian religion has the larger vision. It 
looks beyond the grave. It throws back the 
curtain that hides the future life from the 
natural eye. There are realities on the other 
side. 

As we have seen, the poor heathen has a 
dim consciousness of some kind of an exis- 
tence beyond the grave. The “law written 
in their hearts” tells him that the life that he 
now lives conditions the life in the world to 


271 


272 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


come. But his intimations and premonitions 
are, at best, vague, dark, and gloomy. 

God’s Word is not so. It is positive and 
clear on the great facts of the future. We 
may not be able to understand, much less to 
dogmatize on, all the details of unfulfilled 
prophecy. Many have tried and are trying 
to do so. In their futile attempts they often 
darken counsel with words, lose themselves, 
and confuse their hearers and readers with 
vain speculations. 

The writer of this is writing for the com- 
mon man. He is not going to enter into doubt- 
ful details or confusing speculations. He does 
not claim to be a specialist on the Last Things. 
He desires only to set forth what he believes 
to be the clearly revealed and outstanding 
facts and truths that the ordinary, every-day, 
Bible Christian ought to know for his own 
comfort and hope. At the end of this life 
comes 


Death. 


We all know what death is. For thousands 
of years men, women, and children have been 
dying. There are vastly more human bodies 
under the earth than on its surface. In spite 
of all this age-long experience of the human 


LAST THINGS 273 


race, we somehow never get used to death. 
The news of the passing of a neighbor, of a 
friend, or some noted one, always startles us. 
We do not like death. The very thought of 
giving up this life is unwelcome, “Skin for 
skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for 
his life.’ Job. 2. 4. Every one who is not 
a new creature in Christ Jesus, through fear 
of death, is all his lifetime subject to bondage. 
Heb. 2. 15. To him death is the king of ter- 
rors. 

Even the Christian realizes that death is a 
discord. It does not belong to perfect human 
existence. As long as Adam was sinless he 
was deathless. If he had never sinned, he 
would never have died. By sin came death. 
It is the wages of sin. Sin is its sting. It is 
an enemy. ‘The last enemy that shall be de- 
stroyed is death.” In the new Jerusalem there 
will be no sin and therefore “there shall be 
no more death.” 

The normal Christian wants to live as long 
as it is God’s will and as long as he can serve 
God and his neighbor here. But he is ready 
to depart whenever God may call. He may 
pray for longer life, but he says, “Thy will 
be done.” In a remarkably human passage, 
Paul, after having expressed a desire to 


Luth, Fundamentals. 18, 


274 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


depart and to be with Christ, says, Phil. 1. 
24-26, “Nevertheless to abide in the flesh 
is more needful for you. And having this 
confidence, I know that I shall abide and con- 
tinue with you all for your furtherance and 
joy of faith.” 

This passage also clearly shows that Paul 
believed in the immortality of the soul. To 
depart was to be with Christ which is far bet- 
ter, verse 23. The soul is by nature immortal. 
The original soul was inbreathed by God. 
“The breath of the Almighty hath given me 
life.” As imparted by God, in a mysterious 
sense, a part of God, the soul cannot die. The 
soul cannot fully develop all its capacities and 
powers in this short, sin-cramped life. It 
needs an eternity in that home of the soul. 
Here it is often stung and hurt and misrep- 
resented and made to suffer. It needs a life 
where its wrongs will be righted and its high- 
est peace enjoyed. Doubtless for some such 
reasons the thoughtful heathen have an intui- 
tive belief that the soul cannot die. 

The whole Bible teaches the immortality of 
the soul. The teaching is not so clear in the 
Old Testament; but there are intimations, 
longings, and expressions that become more 


LAST THINGS 275 


and more clear. Jesus quotes the passage, 
“J am the God of Jacob,” as proving that 
these patriarchs were still living, Mt. 22. 32. 
In Lk. 20. 35, 36 Jesus says of those who “shall 
be accounted worthy to obtain that world to 
come and the resurrection from the dead,” 
that they can not “die any more, for they are 
equal unto the angels.” In John 3. 16 He says 
believers “have everlasting life”; in Jn. 6. 58, 
“He that eateth of this bread shall live for- 
ever”: and in Jn. 11. 25, “He that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” 
Heb. 12. 23, refers to “the spirits of just men 
made perfect.” So the poor Lazarus died and 
was “carried by the angels into Abraham’s 
bosom.” The soul of Dives was “in torments,” 
but could see, hear, taste, and remember. To 
the dying thief Jesus said: ‘To-day shalt 
thou be with me in Paradise.” In addition 
to what we quoted from Paul in Philippians, 
we note his expression in 2 Cor. 5. 8, “We are 
confident, I say, and willing rather to be ab- 
sent from the body, and to be present with 
the Lord.” We might quote many more pas- 
sages, but these will suffice. Russellites, who 
call themselves “Bible students,” but really 
are Bible perverters, denying the very Lord 
who bought them, and other heretics may lec- 


276 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


ture and tell you that the soul is not immortal, 
or that the soul is unconscious in sleep after 
death. They are among the false prophets 
that Christ predicted and against whom Paul 
warned. Belief in immortality is clearly 
Scriptural and therefore fundamental. 

There has been. much unprofitable and con- 
fusing speculation as to the place and condi- 
tion of souls between death and the resurrec- 
tion. 

We shall not here enter into a discussion of 
the Intermediate State. From the passages 
quoted above we know that the departed souls 
of the righteous are with Christ, in His “many 
mansions,’ “in Paradise,” and are blessed. 
More will be said when we come to discuss 
Eternal Life, or Heaven. 

For the present also it is enough to know 
that the souls of the wicked are separated, 
shut out from God and the good, are in tor- 
ment, in anguish of mind and soul. More of 
this under the topic Eternal Death, or Hell. 

Just an assuring word here to help quiet 
the perplexed minds that trouble themselves 
unnecessarily with that old question that will 
not down: What will become of the heathen 
who never had an opportunity to hear the 
Gospel? 


LAST THINGS By 


Before we attempt an answer let us affirm 
and reaffirm our unshaken conviction: 


1. That no soul ever was, or ever can be, 
saved without reference to, and relation 
with, the Vicarious Atonement of Jesus 
Christ. 


2. That no one ever did, or ever can, go to 
heaven who has not been born again by 
the Holy Spirit. These fundamental 
convictions must abide. 

3. It is our present conviction that there is 
no sure, clear Scriptural ground for a 
belief in probation after death. On this 
basis the heathen also, if saved, must be 
saved before they die. 

4. Now, if those heathen who “do by na- 
ture the things contained in the law” are 
thus “a law unto themselves,” ‘which 
show the work of the law written in their 
hearts, their conscience also bearing wit- 
ness, and their thoughts one with an- 
other accusing or else excusing them”; 
if they are thus “feeling after God if hap- 
ly they might find him” (see Rom. 2. 
14-16 and Acts 17. 27) ; if by the bloody 
sacrifices they offer, they are seeking an 
atonement for sin; may not God, on the 


278 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


basis of this, reveal to them some sav- 
ing glimpse of the atonement of Christ? 
And when they realize that in them- 
selves they are not well-pleasing to God, 
may not the Holy Spirit, on the basis 
of such a feeling of need and guilt, such 
a longing for an acceptable righteous- 
ness, reveal to them enough of the way 
of life from above and thus “save them 
as by fire.” 

We do know that it is not God’s will that 
anyone should perish, but that all should 
come to life; and to that good and gracious 
will of God we leave the salvation of the 
heathen. The Judge of all the earth will do 
right. Our greater concern is whether we 
are doing what God expects of us in sending 
the precious Gospel to those who are still liv- 
ing in the dark places of the earth, that are 
full of the habitation of cruelty. 

While the Christian who dies in the Lord 
is saved, and enters at once into a state and 
condition of bliss with Christ in heaven, and 
while his happiness is the perfect happiness 
of a disembodied spirit, he is still waiting for 
the resurrection of his body and the final 
Judgment. These great events will be brought 
in by Christ at His Second Advent. 


LAST THINGS 279 


Before we consider that Second Advent or 
Coming of Christ we need to study and ex- 
amine what the Word teaches as to the times 
preceding that final coming. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The Last Times 


HERE are those who believe that the 

world will grow better and ever better; 
that civilization, education, culture, discovery, 
invention, science, and art will all advance 
and will have such a humanizing and ame- 
liorating influence that humanity will ever 
grow broader, better, and happier. Physical 
evils, like poverty, disease, and suffering will 
be gradually eliminated. Violence and crime 
will become more and more rare. Good laws 
will make good rulers and good subjects. 
Nations and their peoples will learn that un- 
selfishness is the best policy and that national 
altruism, community altruism, and individual 
altruism will pay the highest dividends. Then 
nations will no more make war on each other, 
and individuals will no longer exploit and 
wrong one another. ‘This will be the millen- 
nium of human achievement. Recognition 
of the fatherhood of God and of the brother- 
hood of man will make all men and all con- 
ditions new. The Kingdom of God will be 


280 


LAST TIMES 281 


here. Earth will be heaven. Man will 
neither believe in nor want any other heaven. 

These are the ideas of modern, idealistic 
evolutionists and sociologists. They leave 
God and Revelation out of the question and 
spin their theories out of their own brains. 
They unsettle many weak Christians. They 
cannot be classed among the good and sincere 
students of God’s Word. ‘They need no word 
but their own. How they harmonize the 
course of humanity thus far, especially its 
brutish conduct, by no means confined to one 
side, in the late, great, disgraceful war, with 
their ethereal theories, they have not yet told 
us. Either the vaunted kingdom of man has 
not yet come, or history brands it as an in- 
creasing abomination of desolation! 

Other students and teachers, who do not 
want to leave God out of their calculations, 
try to make themselves believe that the work 
and influence of the Church in teaching and 
preaching the Gospel, in pushing her great 
missionary work at home and abroad, will 
gradually make the world so good that when 
Christ comes the world will be as fit and ready 
to welcome Him, as a bride adorned wel- 
comes her husband. This would certainly be 
a consummation devoutly to be wished— 


282 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


if only it were true. The course of the world 
thus far certainly does not favor such pleasant 
optimism. Less than one-third of humanity 
has been even evangelized, much less con- 
verted. In our own favored land, which we 
like to call a Christian land, two adults are 
outside of the Church for every one who is 
at least professedly inside. And who will 
count the tares among the wheat? 

What saith the Scripturer “To the law 
and to the testimony: if they speak not accord- 
ing to this word there is no light in them,” 
Is. 8. 20. At the first Christian Council or 
Synod ever held, when the apostles and elders 
met together in Jerusalem, James, “the broth- 
er of our Lord,” the head of the Church of 
Jerusalem, who, it seems, presided over that 
Council, after others had spoken, said: 
‘Brethren, hearken unto me: Simon hath de- 
clared how God at the first did visit the Gen- 
tiles, to take out of them a people for his 
name.” Acts 15. 13, 14. For what purpose 
did God visit the Gentiles? Was it to win 
all for Christ, to convert them all? James 
does not say so. ‘“I’o take out of them a peo- 
ple for his name.” What James said, includ- 
ing these words, pleased the apostles and el- 
ders. No one questioned or corrected his 


LAST TIMES 283 


words. That Council, so shortly after 
Christ’s ascension and Pentecost, a more 
nearly inspired Council than any that has 
been held since, accepted the saying that 
God visited the Gentiles in order to take 
out a people for Himself. ‘True, salvation 
was to be offered to all, but many would 
reject “the counsel of God against them- 
selves.” Others would accept. These latter 
were to be the people taken out for Christ. 
So it was then; so has it been ever since; so 
will it be till Christ comes again. Where is 
the promise that the world will gradually 
be converted to Christ? What is the consen- 
sus of the predictions that clearly refer to the 
last times? 

To say nothing of the wars and rumors of 
wars, of the famines, the pestilence, the per- 
secutions of the righteous, the arising of false 
prophets, the increasing skepticism, the fall- 
ing away and the waxing cold of the love of 
many, the unwillingness to endure sound doc- 
trine, the clamor of itching ears that want 
teachers after their own lusts, who will turn 
away their ears from the truth and will turn 
aside unto fables — do these Scripture expres- 
sions point to a millennium of righteousness 
preceding Christ’s coming? And what shall 


284 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


we say of the present-day credulity, the strange 
infatuations for such damnable heresies as 
Dowieism, Spiritualism, Russellism, Eddy- 
ism, Adventism, Mormonism, and what not? 
Their false prophets are preparing the world 
for the terrible times that shall come. We 
are shocked with the frightful increase of vice 
and crime. Every lewd person, every selfish 
grafter, profiteer, cheat, and oppressor of the 
poor, can banish fear and draw comfort from 
Russellism and of other modern isms. The 
world is ripening for Judgment. To us, who 
believe, all this means the approaching of the 
end. To us Christ says: ‘But when these 
things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift 
up your heads; because your redemption 
draweth nigh.” Lk. 21. 28. 

We must not close this section without at 
least a brief reference to Antichrist, or rather 
to Antichristianity. It is a difficult subject. 
The writer of this acknowledges that he is not 
ready to dogmatize on it. Christ prophesied 
that false Christs and false prophets would 
arise. In Mt. 24. 23, 24 He says: “Then if 
any shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or 
there; believe it not. For there shall arise 
false Christs, and false prophets, and shall 
show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, 


LAST TIMES 285 


if it were possible, they shall deceive the very 
elect.” Of the coming of the “lawless one” 
Paul says, 2 Th. 2. 9, “Whose coming is ac- 
cording to the working of Satan with all pow- 
er and signs and lying wonders.” In verses 
3, 7, and 8 of the same chapter he says: “Let 
no man deceive you by any means; for that 
day shall not come, except there come a fall- 
ing away first, and that man of sin be revealed, 
the son of perdition . . . For the mystery of 
iniquity doth already work; only there is one 
that restraineth now, until he be taken out 
of the way. And then that wicked one shall 
be revealed, the lawless one, whom the Lord 
Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, 
and shall bring to nought by the manifesta- 
tion of his coming.” Read all the twelve 
verses of chapter two. John says in his first 
Epistle, chapter 2, verses 18 and 22: “And 
as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even 
now have there arisen many antichrists; 
whereby we know that it is the last hour... 
This is the antichrist, even he that denieth 
the Father and the Son.” Also chapter 4. 3, 
“Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is 
not of God; and this is the spirit of the 
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it 
cometh; and now it is in the world already.” 


286 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


We leave out the many and more difficult 
passages often quoted from Daniel and from 
Revelation. From what we have quoted it 
seems to be clear that from the days of the 
apostles there have been many Antichrists. It 
also seems probable that as the end approaches 
they will become ever more bold in their soul- 
destroying heresies and blasphemies. They 
will not confess the God-man, Christ Jesus, 
incarnate and sacrificed for the sin of the 
world. 

In this light examine again Russellism, 
which makes a mere creature out of Christ 
and denies His literal rising from the dead; 
Christian Science, which denies the reality of 
the incarnation, will not confess that God was 
manifested in Christ and died for sin-laden 
humanity; Mormonism with its gross, repul- 
sive, and blasphemous caricature of the per- 
son of Christ; Spiritualism and all the other 
isms that deny the sinfulness and damnableness 
of sin and the need of a vicarious atonement 
by one who is God and man in one person. 
All such are antichristian. All such are soul- 
destroying, damnable heresies, delusions of the 
devil. Many sincere searchers of the Scrip- 
tures believe that all such dangerous and 
devilish systems will finally merge or unite 


LAST TIMES 287 


under the personal leader and head, and that 
this head will be the Beast, the final and su- 
preme False Prophet, the personal Antichrist. 
On this also we cannot dogmatize. 

Surely, in these perilous days of the Last 
Times an indifferent, careless, convictionless, 
and creedless Church will never be able to 
stand against the destructive forces of the wiles 
of the devil. Neither will a Church that may 
be sound, orthodox, and Biblical in belief and 
teaching, but that is cold, worldly, careless, 
and prayerless in heart and life be able to 
survive the times when the very elect will 
be in danger of becoming castaways. Only 
the Churches whose ministers and members 
are on fire with the love of Christ and of souls, 
who are ready to dare, to do, to serve, to sac- 
rifice, to suffer and to die for Him who loved 
them and gave Himself for them, can be fit, 
able, efficient and sufficient to take out a 
people for the Lord, a people who will be 
saved as by fire. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
The Second Coming of Christ 


HE last dark days will end. For the 

elects’ sake they will be shortened. The 
perilous times, with their sorrows and calami- 
ties, their apostasies and persecutions and 
great tribulations, will come to a close. When 
calamity and cruelty, gayety and carousing, 
bitterness and persecution against Christ and 
His faithful ones are at their height, when 
Antichrist will be sounding out his great, 
swelling words of defiance against the Lord 
and His Anointed, then, suddenly, Christ will 
come again. Assurely as every promise 
of His first coming was literally fulfilled, so 
surely will every prophecy of His Second 
Coming be literally fulfilled. As surely and 
as really as He came the first time for salva- 
tion, so surely will He come the second time 
for judgment. If there is to be no real, literal, 
and visible coming again of our Lord and 
Saviour, then our Bible is a book of confusion, 
a tangle of uncertainties, a labyrinth, a blind 


288 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 289 


alley, leading nowhere. Then there is no 
world-plan, no world-consummation. But 
we are persuaded that there is “one sure 
divine event to which the whole creation 
moves.” | 

One-thirtieth part of our New Testament 
relates to the final consummation. 

The last great Mount Olive address, 
delivered by Christ to His disciples, after 
Palm Sunday and before His suffering, is 
full of expressions that the destruction of 
Jerusalem can never and did never fulfill. 
No one during that tragic event saw the 
Son of Man “coming in a cloud with power 
and great glory.” ‘That graphic picture of 
the judgment scene in Mt. 25. 31-46 certainly 
has no reference to Jerusalem’s destruction. 
When Jesus was on the witness stand, on 
trial for His life, when the high priest 
“adjured” Him, 1. e., made Him take the oath 
and swear that He would tell the truth, He 
said: “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man 
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming 
in the clouds of heaven.” 

At His ascension, when He had disappeared 
in a cloud, “while they looked stedfastly to- 
ward heaven as he went up, behold, two men 


stood by them in white apparel; which also 
Luth, Fundamentals. 19. 


290 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing 
up into heavenr this same Jesus, which is 
taken up from you into heaven, shall so come 
in like manner as ye have seen him go into 
heaven,” Acts 1.10, 11> see alsovle [his aks: 
‘‘At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with 
all his saints”; and 1 Th. 4. 16, “For the Lord 
himself shall descend from heaven with a 
shout, with the voice of the archangel and 
with the trump of God.” We might quote 
many more passages to prove the certainty, 
the visibility, and the majesty of His coming, 
but for every sincere believer in the Word 
these will suffice. 

The two events that will take place when 
He thus comes again are, first, the resurrec- 
tion of those who had died in Christ; and 
second, the transformation and translating of 
the living saints. Of the former event we 
shall speak more fully when we come to treat 
of the Resurrection. 

Millions will be living when He comes: 
“Behold, I tell you a mystery. We all shall 
not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and 
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15.51, 52. Also 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 291 


1 Th. 4. 15, “For this we say unto you by the 
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and 
remain unto the coming of the Lord shall 
not precede them which are asleep.” In 2 
Cor. 5. 1, 2, and 3, this change that takes place 
in those who are thus translated is called being 
“clothed upon.” Our body is called “our 
earthly house of this tabernacle.”’ ‘The risen 
or translated body is called: ‘“‘a building of 
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in 
the heavens.” ‘he Corinthian Christians were 
said to groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
upon with their house, which is from heaven, 
1. €., with their new, transformed or changed 
bodies. 

At that coming of the Lord, when living 
saints shall be caught up to meet the Lord in 
the air, shall be fulfilled what the Lord said 
in Lk. 17. 34-36, ‘““There shall be two men in 
one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other 
shall be left. ‘Iwo women shall be grinding 
together; the one shall be taken, and the other 
left. Two men shall be in the field, the one 
shall be taken, and the other left.” See also 
{ Th. 4. 17, “Then we which are alive and 
remain shall be caught up together with them 
in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” 
And so millions of saints then living will never 


292 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


die, but all will be changed, all will be clothed 
upon with new, immortal bodies like unto 
Christ’s own glorious body. 

We cannot close this brief discussion of the 
Second Coming of Christ without some ref- 
erence to the much disputed and variously in- 
terpreted subject of the Millennium. The 
very fact that so much has been written on 
it and that it has been so widely discussed 
certainly seems to show that it occupies a real 
and an important place in the teaching and 
study of the Last Things. 

Theologians and writers who have treated 
on the Millennium may be divided into two 
general classes. Adherents of one class are 
/ called postmillenarians. They believe and 
teach that, through the wide-spread use of the 
present day means and agencies, the world 
will become ever better and better so that be- 
fore Christ comes again there will be a mil- 
lennial period in which godliness shall so 
prosper that righteousness shall cover the 
earth even as the waters cover the sea. Then, 
after this blessed period, Christ shall come and 
find a world prepared to welcome Him. 
These are the postmillenarians. “‘Post” means 
after. Christ will come after this dreamed 
of and imagined millennium is in progress. 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 293 


Adherents of the second class are called 
premillenarians. They believe and _ teach 
that there will be no millennium of righteous- 
ness before Christ comes, but that by His com- 
ing and its attending acts He will usher in 
a new dispensation which we call a millen- 
nium, or a triumphant reign of Christ. 

Believers in a millennium have also been 
called chiliasts. Some of these have been 
called gross chiliasts, because they conceive 
a millennium so gross in its charcter that it 
would seem to be a carnal, earthly kingdom 
suited to men in the flesh. Such gross chili- 
asts were the Anabaptists in the days of the 
Reformation. Melanchthon informs us that 
it was against these that the seventeenth Ar- 
ticle of the Augsburg Confession was directed. 
That Article reads: “They also condemn 
others who spread Jewish opinions, that, be- 
fore the resurrection of the dead, the godly 
shall occupy the kingdom of the world, the 
wicked being everywhere suppressed.” Let 
it be carefully noted, this Article does not con- 
demn all chiliasm. It does condemn a certain 
gross kind. It condemns those who spread 
Jewish opinions; who teach that the godly 
shall occupy the kingdom of the world before 
the resurrection of the dead, 1. e., before 


294 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


Christ comes again. It is directed not against 
premillenarians, but against postmillenarians. 
Will there be a millennium after Christ 
comes? What is the consensus of the teach- 
ing of the Word? The writer of this does 
not claim to be a specialist in the interpreta- 
tion of prophecy. He believes that now we 
can only see “as ‘through a glass, darkly, but 
then face to face”; that “now I know in part; 
but then shall I know even as also I am 
known.” The writer will not dogmatize. 
Some time we'll understand. Will the in- 
terested reader kindly look up and read these 
passages. They would require too much space 
to copy here. Is. 33. 20-24, and 62. 1-7, and 
65. 19-25. Dan. 7. 13, 14,27. Zech. 8. 20-23 
andil4°-20 421% AlsosMte26im29 iki 22 as 
30; Acts 3: 20, 21 and especially Revela- 
tions, chapter 20, which is the most direct and 
graphic of all. These prophecies certainly 
have not yet been fulfilled. They will be. 
According to Lutheran rules of interpreta- 
tion, what do they mean? Let him that read- 
eth understand. 
We close with these reflections: 
1. The view of Luther and of the older 
Lutheran dogmaticians that the millen- 


SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 295 


nium is past is untenable. There has 
been no millennial period. 


2. The view that there will be a millen- 
nium before Christ comes again is un- 
tenable. As we have seen in our study 
of the times preceding His coming, the 
plain teaching of Scripture is against it. 
So is the Augsburg Confession. 


3. Those who believe in the canonicity 
and inspiration of the Book of Revela- 
tion dare not wipe out or belittle Chap- 
fer XX) 


4. Those who are prejudiced against Pre- 
millenarianism need to guard against 
doing violence to the Lutheran prin- 
ciples of Hermeneutics or interpreta- 
tion. 

5. Many recognized, sound Lutheran 
theologians have believed and taught 
that there will be a millennium brought 
in by Christ at His coming. 

Remembering that with the Lord one day 

is as a thousand years and a thousand years 
as one day, these theologians do not insist that 
the millennium will endure for exactly a 
thousand natural years. A thousand years 
may mean an indefinite period. Neither 


296 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


do they deem it necessary to explain every 
detail of the character of that period. 

Among theologians who are premillena- 
rians, we name: Bengel, Auberlen, Frank, 
Von Hofmann, Luthardt, Bring, Fijellstedt, 
Weidner, Lindberg and the late sainted Dr. J. 
N. Kildahl. We like the view of Grttan Guin- 
ness, who is not a Lutheran yet a devout stu- 
dent of prophecy. Dr. Lindberg quotes him as 
saying: “He who had previously come for 
His people, now comes with them; not that 
there are two future comings of Christ, but 
only one. That coming, however, has not 
only two aspects but two stages ... While 
therefore we see no authority for making 
chronological distinctions between separate 
stages of the one Advent, we see, on the other 
hand, abundant reason in Scripture to believe 
that the millennial reign of Christ will not 
be fully established ina day ora year. It must 
be remembered that He comes not peacefully 
to ascend a vacant and waiting throne, wel- 
comed by a willing people, but to dispossess a 
mighty usurper and to overthrow a great re- 
bellion, to right the accumulated wrongs of 
ages.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


The Resurrection 


¢¢ 


HE wages of sin is death.” Sin had 
been abroad from Adam to Moses, and 
Moses’ law had exposed and held up to man 
the exceeding sinfulness of sin. From Moses 
to Christ, sin had been cursing and biting and 
blighting and stinging humanity. Christ had 
come, had taken the curse and the sting into 
His own body, and His vicarious atonement 
had made possible deliverance from the guilt 
and the power of sin. Nevertheless man, even 
justified man, still had the “law of sin” in his 
members and still “sinned oft.” And so the 
wages of sin still followed and plagued him. 
The dread of physical death, the dread of the 
rupture between the body and the soul, the 
shrinking from being unclothed, still kept him 
more or less in bondage. And so even after 
the first Advent, death reigned. And death 
will reign till He who is the Life comes to 
destroy this last enemy. 

Even now death is still abroad. From our 


297 


298 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


home town to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
death reigns. The earth is a great mausoleum. 
Everywhere and everywhen its sod is ripped 
open to receive the dead into its bosom. Every- 
where the white stones of the cities of the dead 
stare us in the face. The heaving mounds 
mourn. Millions of humans are under the 
seas. Death reigns. 

But, behold! We see One mightier than 
death. He comes from Edom, with dyed 
garments from Bozrah, traveling in the great- 
ness of His strength, mighty to save. Is. 63. 1. 
He comes to conquer man’s last enemy. 

For man, for every man, He himself had 
tasted death. So bitter and convulsing had 
been the cup that inanimate nature, the nature 
that had been blighted, marred and distressed 
and disturbed and cursed on account of man’s 
sin, had mourned and trembled. The sun had 
been darkened and the earth had quaked. 
The Conqueror of death had been shrouded, 
embalmed, and laid away in a dark grave. 
But death and the grave had not held Him. 
He had risen. Earth again had felt it, had 
rocked, and had shaken open many graves of 
dead saints. He had risen. He had become 
the firstfruits. After Him come the saints 
from the opened graves. They were the ear- 


THE RESURRECTION 299 


nest, the visible prophecy, the types of the fu- 
ture rising from the dead of all saints. 
This brings us to a consideration of 


The Resurrection. 


As sure as Christ rose again from the 
dead, so sure will there be a _ resurrection 
of all the dead. For those that are Christ’s 
this will be the great Easter morning. Then 
Christianity will be justified as the one, true, 
and final religion. All its promises and hopes 
will be realized. 

All the dead will be raised, the wicked as 
well as the righteous. If all are to be judged, 
as is so clearly shown in Matt. 25. 31 ff., then 
all the dead must have been previously raised 
up. In His masterly defense before the Jew- 
ish Council and the Roman governor, Paul 
makes this clear statement: ‘There shall be 
a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and 
the unjust.” Acts 24. 15. Jesus speaks very 
clearly in John 5. 28, 29, “The hour is com- 
ing, in the which all that are in the graves 
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; 
they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
tion of life; and they that have done evil, un- 
to the resurrection of judgment.” See also 


Rev. 20. 13, “And the sea gave up the dead 


300 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


that were in it; and death and Hades gave 
up the dead that were in them; and they were 
judged every man according to their works.” 
The heretics who teach that the wicked dead 
are annihilated and will never rise, and that 
the final resurrection is for the righteous only 
cannot wipe out these plain declarations of 
Holy Writ. If they desire to make them out 
untrue, the fearful responsibility is theirs. 
The dead will not all be raised up promis- 
cuously or simultaneously. There is to be an 
order in the great act. There is a distinction 
between the rising of the righteous and that of 
the wicked. Of the former Jesus says, Luke 
20.35: “But they that are accounted worthy 
to attain to that world and the resurrection 
from the dead.” Literally translated, the last 
words would read, “‘the resurrection from 
among the dead.” In Phil. 3. 11 Paul says: 
“Tf by any means I may attain unto the resur- 
rection from the dead.” The Greek is the 
same as in the former passage. The margin 
has it “the out-resurrection, out from among 
the dead ones.” ‘This resurrection, out from 
among the dead, is special and separate: 
“each in his own order: Christ the first- 
fruits; then they that are Christ’s at his com- 
ing,” 1 Cor. 15.23. ‘The dead in Christ shall 


THE RESURRECTION 301 


rise first,” | Thess. 4. 16. “Blessed and holy 
is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” 
These passages are clear. The Lutheran rules 
of interpretation will have to be thrown over- 
board before they can be spiritualized or ex- 
plained away. 

As to the interval between the first and the 
general resurrection we cannot dogmatize. 
What we said above as to the Lord’s one day 
and a thousand years applies here. 

The general resurrection will call forth 
those who were not included in the first one, 
which was a selection from among the dead. 
It will embrace all those who will find them- 
selves on the left hand of the Judge. 

‘But some man will say: How are the dead 
raised up and with what body do they comer” 
Will it be the identical body, just as it was laid 
in the grave? “That which thou sowest, thou 
sowest not that body that shall be, but bare 
grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other 
grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath 
pleased him, and to every seed his own body.” 
“Tt is sown a natural body. It is raised a spir- 
itual body. There is a natural body and there 
is a spiritual body.” Read again and read 
often that wonderful Resurrection Epic of 


Baulaln@or 5° 


302 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


The analogy between a seed-corn and the 
human body on the one hand, and between the 
plant that grows out of the seed and the resur- 
rection body on the other hand, is pregnant 
with meaning. It tells us all we need to know. 
The embryo of the new body is in the old 
body. The new body will be of the essence of 
the old body, will come out of the old body. 
All imperfection, all corruptibility that in- 
hered in the old body will be left behind. 
Our house, not made with hands, 1. e., our new 
body, will be eternal. It will be fashioned 
“like unto Christ’s own glorious body.” The 
wonderful after Easter forty days show us that 
other-worldly body. 

‘So when this corruptible shall have put 
on incorruption, and this mortal shall have 
put on immortality, then shall be brought to 
pass the saying that is written, Death 1s swal- 
lowed up in victory. O death, where is thy 
stinge O grave, where is thy victory? ‘The 
sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin 
is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth 
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye sted- 
fast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 


CHAPTER XX 
The Final Judgment 


N THESE sad days when unbelief, rational- 

ism, modernism, and liberalism are so 
rife, and when these modes of thought are 
held up as marks of intelligence and cul- 
ture; when those who still believe in a di- 
vinely inspired Bible are pitied as dupes 
of outworn traditions and superstitions, the 
very idea of a Judgment to come is held 
to be absurd. In fact, in the eyes of many 
advanced modernists, practically everything 
that claims to be supernatural is absurd. 
In them is fulfilled what the aged Paul fore- 
saw and predicted: 2 Tim. 4. 3, “For the time 
will come when they will not endure the 
sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will 
heap to themselves teachers after their own 
lustsee AS Peter saysi'Z'Peti3.13; 4“ here 
shall come in the last days scoffers, walking 
after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the 
promise of his coming? for since the fathers 
fell asleep, all things continue as they were 


393 


304 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


from the beginning of the creation.” Also 
verses 9 and 10: “The Lord is not slack con- 
cerning his promise, as some men count slack- 
ness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not will- 
ing that any should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance. But the Day of the Lord 
will come as a thief in the night; in the which 
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, 
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
the earth also and a works that are therein 
shall be burned up,” or, as some old authori- 
ties translate, “shall be diselocenl " 

Yes, the Day of the Lord, that Great Day, 
the ipndksioan Day, is coming. Whether it 
will be a day in our sense, or a period, as with 
the Lord one day is as a thousand years, need 
not worry us. He is coming; coming “to 
judge the world in righteousness.” 

If we did not believe in a final, righteous 
judgment, we might often be tempted to doubt 
the righteousness of God’s government. There 
has been and there is so much wrong in our 
old world. Job felt it and was tempted to 
curse God and die. The whole Book of Job 
is a theodicy, 1. e., a justification of the ways 
of God with men. So is psalm 73. So is the 
latter half of Romans 8. So is the first part 
of Hebrews 12. God is still good, and it is 


FINAL JUDGMENT 305 


part of His great plan that some day He will 
right earth’s wrongs. Because I believe this, 
I need not fall into despair over the treacher- 
ies, the robberies, the heartless crimes against 
childhood and womanhood, the brutal wrongs 
against the weak and defenseless, the black 
blots that stain the pages of history. Some day 
the wrongs will all be righted. Even the star- 
tling headlines in nearly every morning paper 
that tell of foulness and fiendishness need not 
make a gloomy pessimist out of me. ‘“Some- 
time we'll understand.” I am an optimist 
because I am a Christian and accept the Bible 
as God’s Word. 

There will be a great, public, final Judg- 
ment. This Judgment will embrace the whole 
human race from Adam to the last man then 
living. All the dead will be summoned. 
Every grave will give up its human dust. 
Those who were never buried will come, and 
the sea will give up its dead. At that great 
assize all nations and all individuals will as- 
semble. ‘The great white throne will be set up. 
The books will be opened. Everyone’s spirit- 
ual estate will be disclosed and made manifest. 
The deeds done in the body, the works per- 
formed, will be held up to public gaze. The 


hidden springs and motives of the deeds and 
Luth. Fundamentals. 20. 


306 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


works will be scrutinized. Did they spring 
from faith? Did the faith work by lover 
Were works done in Jesus’ name? ‘The sins of 
omission will be noted. The habitual neglect 
of salvation will condemn. The refusal to 
show mercy in Jesus’ name will be held up as 
a refusal to minister to Him. Then will it be 
made clear that “whatsoever is not of faith is 
sin,” and that “the soul of charity is charity 
for the soul.” ‘There it will be seen that all 
mere humanitarian social service, all service 
that does not flow out of love to Christ, profits 
nothing in His sight. Many will say: ‘Lord, 
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? 
and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy 
name done many wonderful works?” But be- 
cause these works did not spring out of a heart 
that was united to Christ by faith, Christ will 
say: “I never knew you; depart from me, ye 
that work iniquity.” See Matt. 7. 22, 23. 
Those resurrected dead who had died in the 
faith and those still living in the faith will not 
be judged in the same sense as the unbelievers. 
John 5. 24. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
He that heareth my word, and believeth on 
Him that sent me, hath eternal life and com- 
eth not into judgment, but hath passed out of 
death into life.” To them the final judgment 


FINAL JUDGMENT 307 


will bring a public recognition and confirma- 
tion that they have been accepted to God. 

The Judge will be the Son of Man. He 
paints the picture for us and tells the story in 
Matt. 25. 31-46. There will be no deception 
there. He knows what is in man. He will © 
bring every secret thought and deed into judg- 
ment. Before an astonished world the mask 
will be torn from every hypocrite, from every 
one who had led the double life, even though 
he had been a leader in the Church and had 
deceived the very elect. ‘They may then cry 
for the mountains to fall on them and for the 
hills to cover them, but it will not avail. He 
who has eyes like flames of fire will see 
through them. Their false hearts, their dark 
lives, their secret sins will all be laid bare. All 
will see that the Judge of all the world doeth 
right. 

The norm or standard by which all will be 
judged will be their former attitude to Christ. 
Did they receive Him or did they reject Him? 
Did they come with penitent hearts and be- 
lieve in Him, or did they harden their hearts 
in unbelief. Unbelief is the root-sin, the sin 
that will condemn in the judgment. Faith, 
faith that out of a penitent heart reaches up, 
lays hold of, grips and clings to, Christ, and 


308 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


trusts in Him alone for salvation. Such a 
faith will save. Such a faith always works. It 
wants to work. From an inner constraint, it 
must work. It works by love. Its love em- 
braces Christ and all for whom He died. For 
His sake, in His name, out of love to Him, 
such a faith moves to and lives in grateful, 
serving love. Undriven, almost unconscious- 
ly, the possessor of such a faith seeks out the 
needy, feeds, gives drink to, clothes, comforts 
and cares for all that it finds. Faith is in the 
heart. It cannot be observed and seen by men, 
But its fruits, its work of love, can be seen; 
and for that reason works will be held up be- 
fore a gazing world, as the grounds of acquit- 
tal. 7 

And so the judgment will prove that God is 
good, that His government was wise, and that 
He judges in righteousness. 

Glory and power belong to our God; for 
true and righteous are His judgments. Rev. 


19. 1, 2. 


CHAPTER XXI 
The End of the World 
WY Wii the Judgment period the present 


world order comes to an end. This 
poor old earth of ours suffered with the in- 
coming of sin. The ground was cursed. Its 
products were changed. ‘Thorns and thistles 
and noxious weeds began to spring up without 
being planted. No doubt atmosphere and 
climate felt a change. Before sin came it had 
all been very good. Man’s dwelling was a 
garden, a paradise, “fit haunt of gods.” Je- 
hovah came down and walked and talked with 
man in the garden. Angels rejoiced at the 
new creation. “The morning stars sang to- 
gether, and all the sons of God shouted for 
joy.” As far as we know, there were no ter- 
rific storms, no destructive earthquakes, no 
killing frosts, no burning heat, no pestilence- 
breeding, poison-bearing swamps or insects, 
no upas-blights; no sin, no sickness, no suffer- 
ing, no death. All was good, very good. Sin 
changed all. Sin became the great disturb- 
ing, destroying, disaster-breeding element in 


309 


310 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


God’s creation. Creation began to groan. It 
“sroaneth until now.” It “waiteth for re- 
demption”’, the redemption of man’s body, the 
resurrection and judgment. 

Jesus Christ was the second Adam. He 
came to make good all the ruin wrought by 
the sin of the first Adam. His redemption 
must be as wide as sin’s ruin. The curse that 
came by sin must be lifted. Earth, poor 
earth, must feel the throes of redemption. Its 
groanings must cease. There must be a new, 
a renewed earth. An earth purified by the 
fires of the last days. 

Heaven and earth, as to their present form 
and order, will pass away. They will not be 
annihilated, but they will be changed, trans- 
formed. Peter, speaking of the flood, says: 
“The world that then was, being overflowed 
with water, perished.” 2 Pet. 3.6. But the 
world was not annihilated. And so, when in 
verse 10 he says: “The heavens shall pass 
away with a great noise, and the elements shall 
be dissolved with fervent heat and the earth 
and the works that are therein shall be burned 
up,” it cannot mean that heaven and earth 
shall be destroyed, or annihilated. 

We must compare Scripture with Scripture. 
“The earth abideth forever.” It will be a 


END OF THE WORLD SUT 


new earth. There will be “nothing to hurt in 
all God’s holy mountain.” ‘The inhabitant 
shall not say: I am sick.” Then “instead of 
the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and in- 
stead of the briar shall come up the myrtle 
tree.” Then “the wolf and the lamb shall 
feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like 
the bullock.” 

Then shall there be “‘no more death, neither 
sorrow, nor crying.” From the purified earth 
every vestige of sin and sorrow shall be ab- 
sent. It will be anew earth. The nations will 
learn war no more, “swords will be beaten in- 
to plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks.” 
It will be “a new earth wherein dwelleth 
righteousness.” The redeemed shall walk 
there. The new Jerusalem shall descend out 
of heaven from God. That new Jerusalem will 
be in some kind of a heavenly but real connec- 
tion (a connection not yet fully understood) 
with the new earth. Earth will be an outer 
court of heaven. The tabernacle of God will 
be with men. His Kingdom shall have come. 
From the throne of God and of the Lamb “He 
shall reign forever and ever.” The kingdoms 
of the world shall have become “the kingdom 
of our Lord and of his Christ.” 


CHAPTER XXII 
Eternal Death or Hell 


| DISCUSSING the Last Things we cannot 
omit this most unwelcome subject of all 
Dogmatics. 

In every consideration and discussion of 
this dreadful topic we must always bear in 
mind these facts: 

1. God is “not wishing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repent- 
ANCE. id bebe eis OC OU LOAVION Ta ae 
would have all men to be saved and come to 
the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Tim. 2.4. “As 
I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure 
in the death of the wicked; but that the 
wicked turn from his way and live.” Ez. 
eee 

Russellites and other believers who repre- 
sent the evangelical churches as teaching that 
God takes pleasure in the sufferings of the lost, 
slander the churches and insult and blaspheme 
God. 

2. God never builded a hell for man. In 


312 


ETERNAL DEATH 313 


Matt. 25. 41, Jesus says to those on His left: 
“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” 
For whom was the everlasting fire prepared? 
Was it prepared for mane Did Jesus knowr 
He says, “Prepared for the devil and his an- 
gels.” Now turn to verse 34 of same chapter. 
Jesus says to those on the right: “Come.... 
inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” For 
whom was the Kingdom prepared? For an- 
gelse No. For man; yes, for you. Could 
Jesus make it clearer? Heaven was prepared 
for man. Hell was not prepared for man but 
for the devil and his angels. Those who pre- 
fer to follow the devil, “the god of this world,” 
rather than the God who is love, must follow 
their god in eternity and share the fate of the 
devil and his angels. 

3. God has done all that He can do, in con- 
sistency with His nature, character, and at- 
tributes, to keep man out of hell. He so loved 
the world, a world lying in wickedness, a de- 
fiant, rebellious world, that for it He gave 
His only begotten Son. Jn. 3. 16. That Son 
“tasted death for every man,” and that vica- 
rious death was the “propitiation for the sins 
of the whole world.” On the ground of that 
propitiation, that Son has sent out the univer- 


314 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


sal Call: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
Matt. 11. 28. God has sent forth His Holy 
Spirit to offer to man the purchased salvation 
and to enable man to accept it. 

“JT will pour out of my Spirit upon all 
flesh.” Acts 2.17. This Holy Spirit, as we 
have seen, operates through the Gospel, which 
God wants preached to every creature. Yes, 
God has done all that He could to keep man 
out of hell. He will be able to challenge the 
lost as He challenged Judah of old when He 
said: ‘“‘What could have been done more to 
my vineyard, that I have not done in ite 
Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring 
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapesP” 
Is. 5. 4. 

There is a place of eternal punishment for 
those who reject God, spurn the offers of 
Grace, despise the Church and her Means of 
Grace, and so neglect their salvation. 

We may not understand fully the nature of 
the punishment, but we know all that is good 
for us to know. Certain elements of suffering 
stand out clearly. 

One supreme anguish will be the conscious- 
ness of the lost that their fate is their own 
fault; they brought themselves there. Abra- 


ETERNAL DEATH 315 


ham said to the rich man in torment, “Son, 
remember,” and reminded him that he had 
prized this world’s pleasures as his “good 
things” and had neglected to hear “Moses and 
the prophets.” “Son, remember!” Oh how 
that remembrance must have pierced him 
through with perpetual agony! Memory will 
never die. 

The lost will be forever shut out from the 
presence of God and the good. Their com- 
panionship will be with the devil and his an- 
gels, and with those lost souls who in their 
earthly life were sensual and devilish. What 
acompany! And the consciousness that there 
can be no escape! It is too late! 

The punishment will be eternal. The same 
Greek word that is used to describe the dura- 
tion of life in heaven is used to describe the 
existence and suffering of the lost. In addi- 
tion to the passages already quoted and to 
many more that we might quote, we merely 
quote a few telling expressions: ‘Everlast- 
ing fire.” “Everlasting punishment.” “Guilty 
of an eternal sin.” ‘Everlasting destruction.” 
“Eternal judgment.” “The judgment of eter- 
nal fire.” 

Canon Liddon, as quoted by Doctor Jacobs 
(Summary of Christian Faith, page 535) well 


316 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


says: “Modern skepticism has tampered with 
the word ‘eternal’ just as it has emptied ‘sal- 
vation,’ ‘atonement,’ ‘grace’ of their natural 
meaning. But ‘everlasting’ means nothing 
more nor less than that which lasts forever. 
Where that word is applied to our home in 
heaven, the hopes and longings of men glad- 
ly do justice to the natural force of human 
language. But it is noteworthy that no 
stronger expressions are applied anywhere to 
the eternal life of the blessed in heaven, with- 
in the New Testament, than are here used to 
describe the endlessness of the pains of hell.” 

Whether the fire is what we call natural 
and visible fire, or supernatural and invisible 
we know not. “Our God is a consuming fire.” 
That does not mean natural fire. Natural fire 
and flame dispel! darkness. But the abode of 
the wicked is “outer darkness.” ‘The “Son, 
remember,” the consciousness of the past, the 
gnawings of a guilty and self-convicted con- 
science—these, even if nothing more, will be 
hot enough and hell enough! More we do 
not know. More we need not know. 

Flee from the wrath to come! 


CHAPTER XXIII 
Everlasting Life or Heaven 


We have come to the last and best part of 
our every-day Dogmatics. We have studied 
and discussed what we believe God has re- 
vealed as to Himself and His purposes, His 
relations and dealings with man. His actual 
relation with man began in Paradise. Through 
sin, brought in from without, that Paradise 
was lost. From that loss forward God has 
been busy rescuing man from his own ruin and 
saving him for a final, better, safer Paradise, 
eternal in heaven. 

We have anticipated much that we need to 
know about heaven. We have seen that in the 
final consummation heaven and earth will be 
closely connected. We believe that the new 
earth, purified, purged of sin and its baleful 
effects, will be but an outer court of heaven. 
Then, literally, heaven and earth will be full 
of God’s glory. Human language fails to por- 
tray its beauty, its felicity, its glory. Prophets 
and poets have tried to picture its supernatur- 


317 


318 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


al attractions. Even the pen of inspiration 
seems to feel its insufficiency. Paul had been 
caught up into the third heaven. For four- 
teen years he had kept still about it. Then, 
when his enemies tried to belittle him as un- 
worthy of confidence and were out to ruin his 
reputation and influence, they made a situa- 
tion that “compelled” him to “glory” and to 
speak of “visions and revelations of the Lord.” 
Then, in hesitating and halting phrases, he 
tells how he in Paradise had heard “unspeak- 
able words which it is not lawful for a man 
to. utter.” 2 Cor: 1224." Incl Cot Ze 92inis 
same Paul had written, “Eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him.” Possibly the 
Seer of Patmos saw even more clearly than 
Paul and told more fully what he saw. In 
one place he pictures the new Jerusalem as a 
city whose walls are of jasper, whose gates 
are of pearl, whose streets are of gold. Again 
he speaks of a river of water, of trees on its 
banks bearing luscious fruits and healing 
leaves. There are the many mansions, the 
everlasting habitations, the perfect, happy 
heavenly homes. Read the last two chapters 
of your Bible. 


EVERLASTING LIFE 319 


In those holy habitations none but the pure 
in heart can dwell; those who have ‘washed 
‘their robes and made them white in the blood 
of the lamb.” “There shall in no wise enter 
into it anything that defileth, neither whatso- 
ever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.” 
Rev. 21. 27. Some people imagine that God 
could and should throw wide the doors and 
admit every sin-polluted soul into heaven. 
What kind of a God would that be? What 
kind of a heaven would that bee Could 
such souls be happy in such a place? Would 
it not be torment to them? And, if they could 
abide there, what kind of a place would heav- 
en become? Could the pure in heart be happy 
therer No, no. God knows best. In pro- 
portion as our reason is enlightened by the 
Holy Spirit through the Word, in that pro- 
portion we see that all God’s judgments are 
true and righteous altogether. 

There all will be perfect. The spiritual 
bodies will be free from sinful desire and lust, 
pain and death. The mind will no longer be 
clouded by sin. Instead of knowing “in part,” 
we “shall know even as we are kown.” 1 Cor. 
13. 12. Our judgments will be God’s judg- 
ment, our will His will. 

We do not conceive of heaven as a place of 


320 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 


dreamy idleness. Music will be there. Wor- 
ship will be there. Service will be there. 
The study and contemplation of the ways of 
God will occupy all minds. The things that 
the ‘“‘angels desire to look into” will be the 
things that we shall delight to study. Moses 
had been in heaven for nearly a millenium 
and a half; Elias about half as long. When 
they visited the earth they talked about what 
was about to take place in Jerusalem, that is, 
the dying, or atonement of Jesus. The con- 
templation and’ adoration of the Lamb slain 
from before the foundations of the world will 
fill up eternity. ‘‘We shall serve Him.” 
Whatever all that may include we know not, 
but it will be a service of joy. 

But enough! At best we can now know 
only in part, and prophecy or teach only in 
part, but then shall we know even as we are 
known. 

But with other-worldly rapture we can 
sing: | 

“Jerusalem the Golden, 

With milk and honey blest, 
Beneath thy contemplation 
Sink heart and voice opprest; 
I know not, O I know not, 
What social joys are there, 


What radiancy of glory, 
What lig’it beyond compare! 


EVERLASTING LIFE 321 


And when I fain would sing them, 
My spirit fails and faints; 

And vainly would it image 
The assembly of the saints. 

They stand, those halls of Zion, 
Conjubilant with song, 

And bright with many an angel 
And all the martyr throng. 


There is the Throne of David; 
And there, from care released, 
The song of them that triumph, 
The shout of them that feast. 
And they who with their Leader 
Have conquered in the fight 
Forever and forever 

Are clad in robes of white.” 


AMEN. 


Luth, Fundamentals. 21, 








Ve 


. Ath i 
ve 


i 
i 


iy) vay 1) ( 
Ra ah) Wy 





ED 


3 ; any) p 
NWF 
aon 


4 ’ 
: , - 1 i?) 
@4t , ty oy 
Peas rt HL aa 
ati | ; 














Ne 





1 1012 01013 1581 





